The Load Order Initiative

[ADHDoug]

I went into this with every intention of being humble. If I came across as anything else, it was completely UNintentional, and I deeply apologize if I upset anybody already.

It also sounds like I may have been misleading in my goals. I made a big deal out of how bad I am at modding not because I need help with the modding part (yet), but simply so that everyone is aware that I may not completely understand everything being said above intro-level modder complexity unless it is broken down. My actual goal is to utilize this considerable pool of modding experience to ask for mod suggestions in three phases.

The first phase would be to put together a category list, or potentially just use the one on the Nexus if that is comprehensive.

The second phase would be to ask the community if said categories should be sorted a certain way as a generic sorting method for the load order, if that makes sense. In other words, are there certain categories that would be considered foundation mods that must come first in the load order? What categories have to come late in the load order to make sure they override all preceding mods?

The third phase would be asking for relatively specific mod suggestions based on parameters. I may get told to go look for myself still, but I don't know all of what is out there or how to look for it, nor do I have the personal experience with them like you guys might, which will be important for fitting the parameters. Most importantly, you guys probably have a much better idea on variants of mods that are more compatible with TTW than their counterparts. I realize there is a mod list here on the forums, but as far as I am aware that list only consists of conversions and does not include compatible mods that did not have to be converted.

I know it sounds like a lot and that I'm just being lazy when I lay it all out in bulk like that, but I'm not asking anybody to answer a million questions at once. I'm attempting to organize it as a single step program, so I'll only be asking one relatively specific thing at a time. There were four in the first post because I was hoping they were simple to answer and had to be done before even getting to the modding portion.

This is me showing initiative. With some help with suggestions and clarifications, I'm hoping I can put together a guide covering everything from installation to modding that is simple enough for myself and my friends who have thus far been too intimidated to try. If we can manage that, I'm hoping it will prove itself useful to the TTW community as a whole, something to welcome and ease those that might also be intimidated by the complexity of modding in general. The skeletal structure for the ultimate Fallout experience for the individual to plug their own interests into.

[paragonskeep]

Most of the FNV mods work with TTW out of the box. "Most" being the key aspect here. Huge overhaul mods tend not to work due to making use of Fallout 3 leftovers that TTW needs now. NVEC being a big one there. IF the mod in question was authored by one of the team it usually works very well with TTW. Chuck as an example did "Interiors" for both FO3 and FNV and has a full TTW version here on site. That list the frootzcat put together is a great start. Very general load order is ESM and then ESP with lighting and weather mods at the very end. Quite a few mod authors will list the preferred load order for a mod. This has no perfect way it's trial and error and which mod do you want to override which mod. And then you have your merged patch created with FNVEdit. The biggest cause for errors on load order is a mod loaded prior to its master (higher up) as mentioned above programs like BOSS or LOOT will help with this but are not perfect. A quick Google search on load order should yield forum posts on nexus and steam both may prove useful. 

Load orders are like fingerprints, none are the same. Ideally you will want no more than 50 total plugins for best stability. I have ran upwards of 150 but things get really wonky really quickly above 100. 

The biggest aspect to modding your game is trial and error. Install a mod and try it out, if it works good add another etc until it breaks or you get all the mods you want. 

Basic aspects of mods are this, if they modify the exact same place they probably won't work together. Like Player homes with "More to Megaton". Both modify Megaton so conflicts are more likely to occur. 

Things like "textures" however are the last one installed wins due to overwrites during installation. 

I would highly recommend prior to installing ANY mod and after you have TTW installed and working properly make a copy of your data folder and name it TTWVanilla or something. That way if you botch something along the way you can delete your data folder and have a back up so you don't need to do a full install again. (Thank you TJ)

Many of your questions currently are pretty vague, did you have any specific mods in mind or specific questions?

Hopefully some of the info is helpful. 

And for your first post. #1) Looks good as you have it. Just don't double post. If you have additional thoughts edit the original post. Not counting responses as the case currently here. 

#2)Gamefever answered but yes you would uninstall all mods via NMM then uninstall FNV (if I'm doing a new install I normally delete the FNV folder at this point) 

#3) NVSE is great. I would get FNVedit and also the newest FOMM (Roy or someone could you please post links to both I'm derping on this atm)

 

#4) FOMM does not have a Nexus downloader with it NMM has this but FOMM is easy to install mods using it's "package manager" "add FoMod" 

 

[ADHDoug]

My questions are vague so far because I haven't gotten around to asking the big ones yet. The first post had questions that were meant as prep to it but the focus seemed to turn toward me needing help with the modding aspect because I said I was bad at it. I'll doubtless WILL need to ask for some help with that at some point, but I'm not there just yet. I HAVE gotten answers to my prep questions though, so I'll open the next segment, in which I'll be using the Nexus' category list. The question here is:

Generally speaking, can the categories themselves be organized to be more load-order friendly? For example, it sounds like "Models and Textures" would come last to override preceeding mods, would "Gameplay Effects and Changes" come first? I know it's not a perfect science, some mods will require other mods, etc, but I'm looking for broad-term organization in which one category of mod would, generally speaking, come before or after the other categories. Foundation to roof modding, so to speak.

 

Default - I forgot to set this

Animation

Armor

Bug Fixes

Buildings

Clothing

Companions

ENB presets

Gameplay Effects and Changes

Guilds/Factions

Hair and Face Models

Miscellaneous

Models and Textures

New Lands

NPC

Official

Poses

Quests and Adventures

Radio stations

Sounds and Music

User Interfaces

Utilities

Weapons

 

As an addendum, are there any more of these categories that are obviously not gameplay related? I already removed cheats, videos, and saved games.

[TJ]

You guys are confusing modding with mod-using and modder with mod-user. You don't realize it but that comes off as abrasive to the modders in the community.

Mod-Users - often have long, crash prone load orders. They have opinions on mods they like because 'they're cool' or 'add more weapons/armors'. They sometimes don't know how to make a merged patch or how to touch a troublesome mod so that it's located somewhere that it doesn't conflict.

Modders - these guys make the mods Mod-Users use. They spend days / weeks / months and indeed sometimes even years (hello TTW!) perfecting their mods and minimizing conflicts. When they add mods to their own games they often fix mods that others have made for the sake of reducing conflicts in their load order or adding functionality that wasn't originally there. Often it's also to fix bugs created by lesser modders. Most of the time they mod under extreme levels of burnout because the desire to mod is slightly more than the desire to never look at the game/ GECK/ Edit again. They are usually under appreciated because nobody takes into consideration what it took to make the mod they're complaining isn't perfectly compatible with another, more buggy mod. They also get disheartened when someone downloads a mod with NMM then calls themselves a modder. It makes em wanna quit doing what they're doing. They'll drop everything to help when the right questions are asked, but when it comes off like you're saying "do it for me" or "explain everything in this chat box even though you've just linked me to enough documentation to make Project F☰kin Nevada" they wont help.

[RoyBatty]

It's a learning process like any other, there is no "easy" solution. Various authors and tool developers have been addressing it for years and years and no one has come up with an idiot proof solution yet. So going down this avenue is just views as lazy and naive. I don't mean to offend you and I understand exactly what you are trying to accomplish, but there just is no universal solution to it.

The eco system for modding (both for mod authors and users) is just too complex. What you should do, in my honest opinion, is to do what we all do. Read, experiment, learn. I'll post a quote that I post in chat regularly.

mod your game, break your game, fix your game, break your game, fix your game, break your game, learn a bit, break your game, reinstall your game, break your game, fix your game, break your game, break your game worse, reinstall your game, break your game, fix your game, etc.

Eventually by the above, experience gained you learn not to break your game, and how to make your mods work together, and which mods simply won't work together with others. This is a hobby, and you have to be dedicated to it to get the results you desire, and most of all... No one is going to do it for you.

 

[Puppettron]

oh god.  it took me two days to write a script to just alert me when a weapon of a specific perk formlist was being equipped.  2 friggin days.  my first script too.  it was incredibly simple too, but the frustration of trying to figure out how to make the damn thing work drove me to smoke indoors.

now i could duplicate it in less than 10 minutes from scratch, and make it do fun things too.

[TJ]

My first script still stands as my single most complicated. It's in an unreleased and unsupported mod... some of you guys have used it: Controller Hotkeys for LutanaNVSE.

[Puppettron]

difference being that you were working with some of the best people and more mod experience than i was when i was making Gunsmithing 1.something

[TJ]

Oh I wasn't meaning any offense. I'll gladly admit I had Jax to walk me through most of the script as well as look it over and recommend changes. Grib taught me how to set up a bitfield (and most other complicated things I know how to do) and gave advice as well.

[paragonskeep]

[quote=TJ]

 

You guys are confusing modding with mod-using and modder with mod-user. You don't realize it but that comes off as abrasive to the modders in the community.

 

[/quote]

Apologies if that is the case as it was certainly not intended. I hold a great deal of respect for mod authors due to the amount of time and skill it takes to do any of them. I have tried on numerous occasions and fail miserably which deepens my appreciation further.