The Load Order Initiative

[ADHDoug]

Let me begin by apologizing. I don't know modding or load orders. I'm one of those guys who spends a long time trying to understand technical things, but still breaks it as soon as the attempt is made even when directions are seemingly followed to the letter. Going forward, please try to walk me through things the way you would your grandparents with pretty much anything electronic.

My goal, should I be capable of rallying support, would be to produce a comprehensive modding guide understandable to myself, and by extension, pretty much anybody. This will include resetting to a fresh, untouched FNV install, installing script extenders, TTW, picking a mod manager, and installing my potential dream load order. The load order will start out as an attempt at a minimalist, bang-for-your-buck build, expanding to include some specific mods that I want, and hopefully eventually becoming a modular mod list with everything organized in the correct load order with incompatibilities listed alongside in a bold manner to prevent confusion.

The aim is to keep it lore-friendly and survival oriented, with a focus on adding real, tangible content while keeping unnecessary clutter to a minimum. For example, mods built like DLC are perfect. Housing mods that come with mission chains are good. Polished companion mods are great. Heaps of pretty clothing mods and modern weapons, not so much. Personal interests include retro-mad-science stuff like robot building, genetic engineering, holograms, power armor modification, energy weapons, etc. I plan to produce a long-running youtube series once I get all modded up.

Assuming you are willing to help and didn't roll your eyes and leave as soon as I said I don't understand modding, your patience and assistance is VERY much appreciated. To start on the project itself, I have a few, hopefully simple, questions before moving onto the more complex brunt of it:

#1: I really have no experience with forums, are there any suggestions for formatting a segmented project like this to be easily legible?

#2: How do I completely FNV? I've reinstalling but there still seem to be mod file remnants scattered about. If there's already a guide then a link will do just fine.

#3: Key mods required by pretty much everything else? I am aware of NVSE but are there any others?

#4: I went looking for the answer to this one before typing this, but feel I have to ask anyway. For mod managers, is Fallout Mod Manager truly preferential to Nexus Mod Manager? NMM is all I have any degree of experience with and functions for other games, but I think my real question is, does FOMM connect with the Nexus to download and install automatically as well? That's the only way I've managed to get anything to work at all. In fact, I should probably check NMM to see if that's where I uninstall mods from...

 

Sorry the post is so long, but it's a big project I've been putting off for a long time out of embarrassment. Thanks for reading, and all help is highly appreciated.

[freakydoo]

as to number 4 it's subjective. id say MO (mod orginizer) is the top dog but it has a higher learning curve. FOMM (fallout mod manager easier to learn the MO and more powerful than NMM (nexus mod manager). NMM is fine for the basics and small mods but impractical for large mod.

[TJ]

[quote=ADHDoug]#4: I went looking for the answer to this one before typing this, but feel I have to ask anyway. For mod managers, is Fallout Mod Manager truly preferential to Nexus Mod Manager? NMM is all I have any degree of experience with and functions for other games, but I think my real question is, does FOMM connect with the Nexus to download and install automatically as well? That's the only way I've managed to get anything to work at all. In fact, I should probably check NMM to see if that's where I uninstall mods from...[/quote]

NMM and installing mods automatically is why you have little experiencing with mod using (not to be confused with modding, although it is) It's also incompatible with TTW and we provide no support for people who use it beyond "Use FOMM/ MO."

Understand that I mean no offense, but the only way to avoid issues is to learn how the game works inside and out, and adjust your mods accordingly. As most people do not or can not do this, minimal issues are to be expected. There's no silver bullet for the perfect load order, and even BOSS / LOOT, while highly recommended, gets things wrong. Also for anything that changes levelled lists you should use a merged patch.

 

Highly recommended things are FNV4GB, the memory patch for NVSE (and NVSE as you mentioned) and NVSR with heap replacement.

[gamefever]

For #2

After you have uninstalled FNV, you want to go to your File Folder

Steamapps\common\fallout new vegas\

make sure there is nothing there especailly the data folder.  Left over stuff in data folder can and ussually will have some unexpected results later in the next game if not removed...

Data folder is where all your mod information goes.  The easy stuff that can linger and will most definately affect a new game are, armors, textures, and sounds... An exhaustive list of mod data would be tiring to cover.

[ADHDoug]

[quote=TJ]

Understand that I mean no offense

[/quote]

No, I get you, but I've been told that every time I've had to ask for help since Morrowind came out. It's not a comment I take insult to, but it does get irritating when you've tried to understand modding for over ten years and whenever you work up the nerve to ask for help, the immediate response is "Figure it out". I'm not new to this, or lazy. Just dense I guess. I'm very aware that there is no "perfect" load order, but with this community's help I'm hoping to at least come close. Everybody here seems to be a seasoned modder and knows what is out there and what they want. What I'm hoping to do is split the different mods into categories, possibly the ones the Nexus already uses, then take suggestions for the "best of the best of the best" mods from each category while getting pointers along the way for an order to put them in to make the trial and error part easier. And maybe, just maybe, I can finally pick up enough basic knowledge along the way to install simple little things without having to run for help all the time.

Thanks for the help so far guys, I'm getting just a little bit completely desperate for this ultimate Fallout experience. I have FNV and FO3 reinstalling now and will try to figure out TTW when they are done. And TJ? Thanks a ton for trying to figure out Mothership Zeta Crew. I hadn't even heard of it until I saw it mentioned here. I was completely blown away and can't wait to add it to the project.

Edit: Uninstalled FNV, deleted files, reinstalled. Save files are still there and I don't have a pipboy, presumably due to the Readius mod (which I know is incompatible with TTW). Can I be certain all mods are wiped and the pipboy is just a matter of starting a new game or something? How do I go about resetting save files? I want to start fresh, not delete them ingame and start a new game with save #1000 something.

[thermador]

Highly recommended things are FNV4GB, the memory patch for NVSE (and NVSE as you mentioned) and NVSR with heap replacement.

Agreed.  Those should probably be the base package there.  BOSS and FNVedit should probably be added as well. 

If you want tips on modding you should really read out FAQ and watch the videos that are linked there.  This will do more for your modding understanding than anything I can write here.

For mod managers.

• 
  My preference would be using FOMM, the newest version.  It is stable and mature software that works well.


• 
  NMM is not supported, unless Nexus fixes their program so that it doesn't crash when installing large mods like TTW. 


• 
  Mod Organizer can work, but it's a steep learning curve and has a lot of bugs that still need to be worked out, in my opinion.  I have not been able to successfully use it myself (too many crashes), but many people here do use it.

[RoyBatty]

It's not really that people go "figure it out", it's just that there is trepidation on hand holding in the communities. You end up with the Skyrim community full of users who expect the mod authors to do everything for them, and then whine/complain/threaten when they don't. The morrowind/oblivion/fallout communities still have it, but much less so. That's not good for the community really, and lots of good people and modders are chased away because of that type of thing. No one wants that.

The moral of this is, if you show some incentive and effort that you are trying to figure stuff out and you ask a few specific questions about troubles you have, instead of blanket ones, you'll find that the community is more than willing to lend a helping hand.

There is already a plethora of information in the forums here and the nexus and various other sites that cater to these games. If you are having trouble finding a solution to a specific problem, usually there is already solutions somewhere. They can be difficult to find or buried under years of posts, but they are there if you look hard enough usually. There are times when the solutions or problem is not apparent, that's where we, the community come in to help if you ask ;)

[freakydoo]

got to youtube and look up anything by Gopher. itll help.

[Puppettron]

i'm not sure how much his LPs would help, tbf.

[paragonskeep]

Here are the Gopher playlists mentioned above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClqtmSUsFhg&list=PL77ECC4B6194E1685

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MII4TO-G634&list=PLF6F122CB27A4C085

Ignore/skip the NMM ones since FOMM works better for TTW. 

The forum search here is very well done with an advanced option to search exactly what you would like to know. Can't recommend that enough. Also most on chat will help when and if they can. 

Don't worry too much on the "technical" side of things, I am fairly versed with things but modding is a beast of it's own for me as well. 

As Roy et al have mentioned initiative and humility goes a long way with the community. Showing effort of trying to solve the situation yourself says a lot. Just don't give up. You may consider yourself dense but even diamonds get cut at some point. Myself and I'm sure a few others are right there with you.