Fallout 3 mods?

Thinking about replaying both Fallouts, starting with 3. I bought the steam GOTY version last night as I had the original GFWL version. My mods on the original game are old and so I need to download everything again. What mods are vital to make the game run at its best? Also, I'd love a list of personal favorites. I don't play for difficulty, so I'm more into graphical, quest, companion, body textures, etc.

I've got the FOSE, FOMM, and Nexus Mod Manager going, but that's about it. Is Dimonized still the most supported body mod? Give me your tips!

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Thinking about replaying both Fallouts, starting with 3. I bought the steam GOTY version last night as I had the original GFWL version.

Doesn't the Steam version also require GFWL?

In general, it's tough to find tidbits on FO3 - most people who still play opt for FONV. But I know that if I were doing a playthrough today, I would look at FOOK, Mart's Mutant Mod, NMC texture pack, Weapon Mod Kits, RH Ironsights, & Underground Hideout.

"Thinking about replaying both Fallouts, starting with 3."

*facepalm*

Sorry, I couldn't help but groan at that statement. Otherwise, I have nothing of value to add to the topic.

I really liked the look I got in F:NV with Depth of Field, More Grass, and Fellout: New Vegas.

Definitely get NMC's texture back, it drastically improves the look of the game, and Martigen's Monster mod adds some interesting new creatures. I would also recommend DC Interiors project, which opens up lots of boarded up buildings in DC and across the wasteland. Also Darnified UI to get rid of the console interface.

Yeah Darnified UI is a must imo. Also get the "Delay DLC" mod so you don't get all the DLC quests dumped on you when you exit the vault. It makes the game more realistic by activating the DLCs when you get within radio distance of them or by talking to certain NPCs.

Ironsights mod, too is nice, but be careful, at one time it broke the alien blaster model so you couldn't pick it up. That may have been fixed.

This is an ENB for Fallout3 but the images are pretty cool and might worth trying if you are still playing (I am still working on FO3 and a replay of FNV). Same engine I think so should work with both but haven't tested it.

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/18753/?

I got bored of the Fallouts pretty quick this time. Only about 60 hours in F3 and about 5 in FNV. Jumped back into Skyrim and picked up Anduniel, a companion mod. She's a hunter/thief/bard wood elf. It's just fun to have a wood elf striding along next to my Altmer. The contrast is quite amusing There is a mod that changes all the heights to make them more lore consistent, so a male Altmer/Orc is the tallest of all races and a female wood elf or female Breton is the smallest. It also makes Giants gigantic, which makes them much more devastating to fight. Now when they knock you a half mile in the air, you understand.

F:NV is older than Skyrim. Yet, if your sidekick blocks a door or a narrow passage, you can tell him/her to shove off unlike nonexisting such option in Skyrim. No mods needed.

crpgnut, I must ask this, sorry. Are you a masochist deep inside?

Has anyone played through an entire FO3 game + DLCs w/ FOOK installed? I ask because I'm getting an itch to play it again and, while I have plenty of FNV FOOK experience, I have never played through FO3 FOOK. Nevertheless, FO3 FOOK is *very* script heavy and I've read reports of random crashes (moreso than the standard game).

Before someone skirts the question and recommends FWE instead, I'm not really interested in that right now.

I tried to do it in the early days of FOOK, but found F3 so tiresomely dull and most of the additional features appeared quite un-canon friendly and rather plentiful and overpowered. Also, the writing is just so dreadful that I couldn't stomach the game anymore.

I've only tried it for a bit - and IIRC, it was too buggy and counter to the design in certain ways. But I'm sure it's improved. Given your position on SkyRe and Requiem - it would seem a better fit than FWE for you. However, I very much doubt it can match FWE in terms of being complete and well balanced.

FWE is really quite fantastic for FO3 - and makes it relatively close to FO1 and FO2 in spirit, without changing the FO3 design too much.

The reason I don't really want to bother with FWE is because I already used it in the past and I've also played its newer sibling, Project Nevada, for 1,000 odd-end hours. FOOK2 also has better textures, overall, than FWE (I filtered through a great deal of both mods in the editor a couple months back).

What's the difference between FOOK and FOOK2?

Not sure what you mean, JDR. FOOK, as I used it above, is for FNV; FOOK2 is for FO3. The reason for the paradox in the naming/timeline is that FOOK started off in FO3 but got rebuilt along the way (not sure on specifics). So, the second version is "FOOK2." There's only ever been one FOOK for FNV.

Ah ok. The naming had confused me for a moment.

I just spent a few minutes checking out some FOOK 2 footage on YouTube. It looks like it adds a *lot* of new weapons. Does it add new monsters as well? I saw some non-cannon enemies in the video I watched, but I wasn't sure if they were from FOOK or another mod.

I'm thinking about giving it a try the next time I play FO3, but only if the added items truly feel like they belong. I'm generally against fan-made weapons in these types of games.

It adds around 100 new weapons, new armors, crafting recipes, a very script-heavy overhaul to the companion system, implements the EVE mod… and likely other stuff.

No new monsters that I'm aware of; in that realm, the king of the hill would be Mart's Mutant Mod.

Well…

FOOK pros:

• superior textures, both weapon and otherwise, to FWE
• custom leveled lists spread loot around the wasteland with greater variety as compared to vanilla lists
• Lots and lots of varied armor and weapons

FOOK cons:

• Like most FO3 mods, it is abandoned; but, unlike those other mods, it kinda sorta had rough edges that were left to fester with (almost) noone left to work them out.
• Miscellaneous reports of savegames crashing upon level-up truly worry me - especially when there are multiple save games corrupted at a time. Which leads to…
• The Phalanx companion overhaul is a monstrous work of beauty. But, wow, it's pervasive, all scripted, and worrisome over the long term, to say the least.
• Balance. FOOK retains vanilla balance for all intents and purposes. Vanilla is pretty easy…

Both a pro and a con: It's a giant compilation! There no need for an EVE patch because EVE is an intrinsic part of FOOK - as is so much else. But, if there isn't already a FOOK-specific patch for the mod component in question, you'll be doing it yourself.

If I had the time and gungho interest, I'd be keen to hack apart FOOK, keeping its FOSE functions, leveled lists, item retextures, guns & armors… but leaving out Phalanx. And then correctly modifying all its 150 weapons for ironsights (heh).

Great mod. But I just want something requiring less work right now.

edit: and, now, messing with FWE a bit, I can wholeheartedly say that, for all the praise it gets, the Blackened series of patches are very amateurish.

One of the best FO3 companion mods I've tried, very much recommended for all the features it brings to the table: Brisa Almodovar. I'm really quite happy with her, especially her different weapon loadout presets and passive AI for proper sneaking.

NVAC: a New Vegas anti-crash mod that is delightfully effective at fixing a lot of FO3's retardation such as crashes on save.

If I had the time and gungho interest, I'd be keen to hack apart FOOK, keeping its FOSE functions, leveled lists, item retextures, guns & armors… but leaving out Phalanx. And then correctly modifying all its 150 weapons for ironsights (heh).

For the record, I actually went ahead and did this to a certain extent; I implemented a hundred or so new (FOOK) items, balanced several hundred new weapon/modded weapon entries for FWE, added FOOK's textures, added several hundred FOOK-styled level lists for old and existing items, cleaned up everything for proper WMK-EVE-Ironsights compatibility, plus some other things. At 2 1/2 megs + 850megs in assets, it's the biggest patch I've ever made by far.

What I didn't do because I'm just about sick of modding Gamebryo is implement new FOOK NPC templates and and their associated leveled list overhaul.

It doesn't require FOOK itself but the caveat to that is that it would be a grueling hornet's nest of tedium and frustration to try to garner all the permissions necessary for a Nexus upload. Oh well!