Post your favorite mod experience...

[Art Blade]

Just on a sidenote, when I first got FOSE and FOMM, I had uncountable CTDs. I had to try it the hard way: Disable all mods, then enable them one by one, until the CTD happened again. Loads of trial and error runs, and in the end I found out it was the optional MTC wasteland travellers for cities. It never worked again, no matter the load order. It used to w@&k before that, however.

[PZ]

Here's a bit of information that might be useful regarding mods, etc.

• Adjust the order in which the mods are loaded - I recall some of them saying that if not loaded properly, the game will crash.
• As Art said, turn off the mods one at a time to find the offending mod, but with this twist (I learned the hard way) - disable the mod, load a saved game that you can sacrifice, save the game, and then reload it again.  One time I'd installed a mod that caused game crashes and after removing all of them, the crashes still occurred!  Loading and then immediately saving a game fixed the problem, and in fact allowed me to reactivate all of the mods (even the newest one) with success.  Evidently, something had occurred to corrupt my saved game file.
• Also as Art recommended, always start your game with FOMM (I seriously doubt that FOSE causes any problems) and ensure that you play with the load order of the mods.  Be sure to do the load/save technique above.
  

[PZ]

The green world combined with fellout's sky and light/night... great and major changes.  :-X

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Who is the chap that looks like George Washington?

[Art Blade]

"my" Charon (Art Mod)  ;D - using Tenpenny's suit and the wig you get off of a protectron robot called Button Gwinett, to be found in the National Archives (a quest leads you there)

I thought he'd look great in front of "Rebuilding America's Future"  ;D

[PZ]

 :-X :-X

[Art Blade]

(I learned the hard way) - disable the mod, load a saved game that you can sacrifice, save the game, and then reload it again.  One time I'd installed a mod that caused game crashes and after removing all of them, the crashes still occurred!  Loading and then immediately saving a game fixed the problem, [...] Evidently, something had occurred to corrupt my saved game file.

FANTASTIC! Just did that. Now the cities are again populated by the optional mod.  :-X :-X :-X

[PZ]

Glad to be of service  ;)

[Art Blade]

it was so helpful, you get another applaud from me, and I added that quote to the first post of FO3 mods topic.  :-X

[Art Blade]

And to deadman, the man who started that mod topic  ;D ;D ;D :-X

[PZ]

The Underground HideOut is fantastic. Now I can see all weapons (just found the last one hehe)  :-X

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You're too kind!  :)

I agree completely - the hideout is one of my favorites, but then I still like small cockpit-style spaces, and I love all the weapons you have on the wall.  There is an updated version of the hideout mod by the way. 

I just managed to kill a super mutant this last week which game me a laser Gatling gun - that one is really cool.

[Art Blade]

Cheers. :)

I wonder, if we have an old version of UHO, does changing to a newer one crash the savegame or will we lose stuff in the lockers? Argh :)

I guess it's all in the readme again. Going to check, I'm not sure which version I've got, and what the modder says about upgrading :)

/Edit: I started with 3.3, so no update. And yes, the author tells you if you need to take care of something, like DLC or non-DLC version (I've got the latter)

[PZ]

Yes, thanks for the reminder - I recall some sort of caution where you are instructed to take all of your weapons off the wall, but I don't recall the specifics at the moment. I didn't take the weapons off, but did a new install.  (However, it did not affect my meager collection of weapons.)  Maybe it is best that you just don't care about saved games - once I had that attitude, I've rarely had problems!  ;D

[Art Blade]

lol, you posted 10 seconds earlier than me!!

read up, I was editing, again :) lol

[Ricamundo]

Here's a bit of information that might be useful regarding mods, etc.

• Adjust the order in which the mods are loaded - I recall some of them saying that if not loaded properly, the game will crash.
• As Art said, turn off the mods one at a time to find the offending mod, but with this twist (I learned the hard way) - disable the mod, load a saved game that you can sacrifice, save the game, and then reload it again.  One time I'd installed a mod that caused game crashes and after removing all of them, the crashes still occurred!  Loading and then immediately saving a game fixed the problem, and in fact allowed me to reactivate all of the mods (even the newest one) with success.  Evidently, something had occurred to corrupt my saved game file.
• Also as Art recommended, always start your game with FOMM (I seriously doubt that FOSE causes any problems) and ensure that you play with the load order of the mods.  Be sure to do the load/save technique above.
  

Thx for the tips, but i cant stand an unstable system. :D As far as starting the game, when FOSE was installed, i did bring up the FOMM window, which i use, and the start button in FOMM said Launch FOSE. Now it says Launch Fallout, like before.

As for lauch order, Fallout is listed as 00 with other mods starting as 01, 02, etc, but they are not in order from top to bottom. Is this ok, or do they have to be in order from top to bottom or does it matter?

I really dont want to bother with all that testing tbh. My game runs ok, with about 20 mode running, including a couple of settlements/bases out in the wasteland that Charon and I havent even found yet. 8) Oh, and btw, Fellout and Clear Sky seem to w@&k ok together, but unfortunately Greenworld is too much for my system, i think.

[Art Blade]

The clear sky... I heard/read about it, and I think it is at least abundant and thus obsolete if you use fellout. Fellout produces very blue skies and clear nights with stars... also cloudy and windy weathers... So, I don't see why you should want to use it together with Fellout :) Maybe THAT causes your problems, combining those two mods that should not be combined ;)

[PZ]

I've not really sorted it all out yet myself - but the ones that significantly change the game (like sounds, graphics, etc), I load lower in the list (later in the loading order) so that they take priority over anything loaded earlier.  For example, if you loaded the main fallout graphics after a mod that loaded it's own textures, the original fallout textures might be the ones used rather than the modded ones.

The mods that are simple settings changes or make use of existing resources can probably be placed anywhere in the order.

Good to know about the clear sky mod - although I've it loaded with fellout and it is not causing problems, it sounds like it is a waste based on your report.

[Art Blade]

yeah, even if they can co-exist, they may still have bits and pieces that mix oddly. How well the Fellout mod works, regarding skies, can be observed in my screenshots above. :)

[Art Blade]

I have now added those hi-res environment textures, the scan lines remover, the hi-res colour map. None of which uses an .esp (mod file) but adds stuff to the data folder.

I say! Nice one, PZ  :-X

[Art Blade]

I want to add that using the program -- what a mouthful -- "ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated"  really makes life much easier. Now all the textures w@&k, no more flickering images etc. And no manually messing around with editing some kine of ini files. Just great, especially noticeable with the UHO mod, the teleporter device and the aquarium in your quarters. What a difference :) Just add a mod, and ignore all the readme stuff about how to edit the invalidationblahblah file entries  :-X

Something else, I think the lights in Megaton look good. I didn't test the mod that enhances the lights there, so here you can see Megaton at night (clear nightsky with stars... using Fellout, not clear skies).

I'd like to compare that with the lights mod. So I just downloaded it.

Not a huge difference, but clearly, there are some parts that do have more light. :)

here is a before/after comparison:

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[PZ]

Good w@&k Art - I was wondering if the lights mod would make that much difference. I really like the scan lines removed and the color map, particularly with the amber PIPBoy (makes the colors stand out).  The mod writer did a good job with the colored icons too.

By the way, what graphics card settings are you using when playing FO3?

[Art Blade]

In-game setting "Texture size =Large". Gfx settings all maxed out. Both game and driver side. Plus, "my specialty," always V-Sync ON, AA OFF, AF OFF.

edit, sorry. I force V-Sync to be ON. :)

[PZ]

Thanks, I was experiencing lag which I should not be considering that Bethesda recommends the graphics card I'm using.

[Art Blade]

the lag may be caused by those large texture packs you downloaded, like the environment, rocks, roots, streets stuff kind of thing. The bigger the textures (the higher the resolution of textures), the more likely it is to experience lags. However, FO3 tends to lag a little once and then, but usually not constantly. Easiest way to get rid of lag is to change from inside locations to outside locations, or vice versa, which clears the buffers.

Or, type "pcb" (purge cell buffers) into the console and hit enter :)

[PZ]

I want to add that using the program -- what a mouthful -- "ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated"  really makes life much easier. ...

Yes, this is an excellent application that you mostly use only once and negates the need to edit an ArchiveInvalidation.txt file.  The only thing I would add is that one of the mods I recently installed recommend toggling ArchiveInvalidation off and then back on to complete the installation.  If you installed a mod that requires that applet or are having problems getting it to w@&k, you might try this technique.

[PZ]

the lag may be caused by those large texture packs you downloaded, like the environment, rocks, roots, streets stuff kind of thing. The bigger the textures (the higher the resolution of textures), the more likely it is to experience lags. However, FO3 tends to lag a little once and then, but usually not constantly. Easiest way to get rid of lag is to change from inside locations to outside locations, or vice versa, which clears the buffers.

It is strange but the game has had the lag ever since I first installed it, even without mods of any kind.  I'll try your settings to see if that makes a difference with my rig.