panurgy

Reading the comments, maybe Constance isn't for everybody, but I love this mod. Often, even with great companions, I get turned off and feel that they don't fit with my game or character. Constance is fun to have around, a great, low-maintenance companion (other than her "character moments") and highly recommended. Maybe not so much for an upright Legion-style character - except for the laughs - but other than that she's great. One of the best companions in any TES game.

If you want a stable game, you just need to follow a few simple practices: Use a tool like Mod Organizer 2, so you can easily install and uninstall, while keeping your Data directory clean.Test new mods with a new character - so you can easily back out without trouble.Spend some time putting together a good mod list. (With test characters/saves.)After you start a character "for real", don't remove mods that have plugins until you're ready to start a new character. Using the above practices, I've got a Skyrim LE game that hasn't crashed in 40+ hours. And I've got an SE game that crashes every 5-6 hours, which is undesirable, but doesn't ruin the experience. In both cases, I'm using 300 - 400 mods. I've used 500+ mods for Morrowind and Oblivion, with stable games. It just takes patience and preparation to setup. Also, just to be pedantic: the "baked in" save is really only true for Skyrim and FO4. Earlier games didn't do this. Even so, the above practices are needed for a large mod list in any game. You could remove mods in older games, but it was never entirely safe.

IMO SE is better for stability and should be the default. But I'm going to make it complicated. LE has ~62k mods. SE has ~22k. LE has more junk, duplicate and outdated mods, but even factoring that in, it probably has around twice as many. OTOH, SE seems a little more active with mod creation, and some new mods are not getting backported to LE. I'd give SE the edge here, barely. The other factor for me is graphics. For a high-end GPU and the best possible graphics (ENB with HQ textures), I think LE is the clear winner. I switch back and forth between LE and SE, and I struggle having to see the "downgrade" when in SE. If you don't care about graphics, or have a less than mid-range GPU, than SE wins. Otherwise, LE is the winner.

It has a significant effect, but it's probably not be as extreme as the Loot Overhaul. I'm just afraid to say it's hardcore when you might want something even more so. ;) I agree with you about "creating your own" overhaul. Often the big ones have really nice features, but there are always a few design choices that I don't like. So I just roll my own with a combination of mods to try to build exactly what I want.

Late to the party, but I thought I'd throw in a combined suggestion to add to jones177 great suggestions: Grim Wolf ReShade and ENB. Institute ASD is IMO one of the best out there, and is the one that I always return to. I switch up ENBs every so often and even with the great ones, I often find that I feel "fatigued" after using them for a while. I never feel that way with Institute ASD. The Pack is in the collection and may be even better in terms of the dreamy quality you're looking for. Railroad is amazing, but it can get dreary, and I find that I can only use it for a few days in a row before I switch to a less stylized preset.

I haven't used Fallout Loot Overhaul, so I can only give a partial answer. I've used BLD Leveled Lists alone and in conjunction with Worthwhile Cap Stashes and Safe Trunk Contents Reworked. BLD LL is fairly harsh on it's own, and my only complaint is that it didn't seem to give as much variety as I'd like. It definitely improves the game in that it encourages you to think about taking Economics perks and scavenging perks. Loot trickles in, but it's slow and scarce. You find a lot of empty containers. I like the variety from adding the other mods I mentioned, but it definitely takes some of the pressure off and makes the experience easier (though still more hardcore than vanilla). BLD LL on it's own is enough to make the first 20 or so levels noticeably harder for keeping ammo supplied and getting decent gear. For me, at least at early levels, harsher than BLD LL would be too much. By the time you're level 40 or 50 you're in good shape but probably not rich. In terms of compatibility, I'll give the usual "check them out in FO4Edit" (though that won't show scripted changes, if there are any). You might be able to merge the leveled lists in Wrye Bash if they conflict. I'd be surprised if they don't conflict at all. Oh, BTW, there are a few LL config options via the BLD holotape in-game, too.

I've tried a few different variations. NMM for special installs and load order tweaking + manual for everything else NMM for everything with a little manual tweaking Vortex with some manual tweaking Vortex is looking good, but doesn't allow manual load order management. I find that frustrating. Both NMM and Vortex occasionally mess up mod installation, though it's rare for either. If you're like me and constantly tweaking bodyslide/outfit studio or making edits with FO4Edit, then you might be better off using NMM, because it's less "intrusive" than Vortex, and easier to back out and switch to a manual install if desired. But Vortex is much better for handling multiple profiles, IMO. I've had trouble with NMM, and it can be extremely slow even when it works. Anyway, the next time I do a fresh install, I'll probably revert to option 1, use NMM for installation of complicated FOMODS, and do everything else manually. It's slower, but you know exactly how everything is setup. The two use cases this fails for is for quickly/easily checking out new textures, and for handling multiple profiles (different characters with slightly different mod lists). If you're not "opinionated", and don't mind handing control over to the mod manager, Vortex is probably your best bet. The more manual control you want the more you should lean towards NMM.

I'm not going to get into little details here, just a few comments on using Vortex. I'll do a couple of parts because I'm about to be interrupted. I apologize for front-loading all the negatives. I thought I'd have time to do this in one go. Quick Positives: If Vortex was broken or terrible to use, I'd have removed it in my first week of use. It's easy to use, usually intuitive, and generally gets the job done. Overrides are a little confusing, but usable and with some improvement could become a killer feature. On to Part 1: I've been using it for about a month now with Fallout 4. I already had a combined manual/NMM setup, but reinstalled from scratch when I removed NMM and installed Vortex. I'm using 172 plugins and 198 mods, according to Vortex, though I've done some manual additions and changes. I'm using 4 profiles with similar mod setups, and profile management is much improved from NMM (much faster and less painful, as easy or easier to setup and switch profiles). Problems Shared with NMM I never used NMM as intended, instead using it for easier FOMOD installation and load order tweaking. NMM had too many issues, didn't always install mods to the correct directory, didn't always correctly remove mods, and it was difficult to track overrides. Vortex currently shares many of these issues. Installation and Packaging If mods are archived under a Data directory, install often goes wrong. If a mod follows a format with "Mod Name" -> Data -> Files/Sub-Dirs, install might go wrong. Older versions of NMM had this issue as well. It also seems odd to me that sloppier packaging conventions are preferred over explicit. Regardless, this should be a simple fix. Load Order (aka: Are you kidding me?) The decision to not provide manual load order control is just plain wrong. LOOT is great for a "rough draft" load order setup, but doesn't cut it when you want to get things exactly right. LOOT sorting has resulted, for example, in Glory changing outfits 3 times so far in my current game. I'll add a completely unrelated mod like "Darker Nights" and LOOT might suddenly switch up everything (after being relatively stable for several consecutive mod installs). The "new" LOOT behavior (with rule-based sorting) is a little whimsical, and will occasionally result in large, somewhat random load order jumps. It won't break the game, but it's terrible if you want control over specific overrides (faces, outfits, gameplay tweaks, etc.). You can't solve this with LOOT's rules. You can try chaining mods together by dependency, but that will often result in the lead/prime mod being moved much further up the load order and pulling others with it--the exact opposite of the desired behavior. Sometimes it works out fine, sometimes it ruins what you're trying to accomplish. Anyway, my opinion a mod organizer that doesn't support explicit, manual load order control is aimed entirely at a novice crowd, and strongly encourages more advanced users to look elsewhere. If that's not your goal, it would be good to reconsider. More (and some positives) coming in part 2...

Override Raider Overhaul with BLD files. IIRC, you should also get that option for Super Mutant Redux. Otherwise there will be some incompatibilities between BLD and those mods. It might not be noticeable, but BLD won't be working entirely right. You shouldn't be getting crashes from any of those 3 mods. Make sure that you've sorted your load order with LOOT. Other than that, I'd look at other mods for issues before those 3.

I don't know much about the older age gamer population, but I'd suspect that it's harder to nab us online, especially on game forums, though I could be wrong. BTW, have you posted on Steam, reddit, enbdev, Dark Creations, or other sites that have a decent-sized TES population? Also, a few comments on the survey: - Cheat, Utilities, Tutorials are a bad combination. I don't think I've ever used a cheat in a TES game, I do the opposite and try to make the game harder and resources more scarce. But I, and a large percent of people who install mods, use utilities and tutorials. LOOT/BOSS, Wrye Bash, xEdit. Some people might include ENB, SweetFx, and ReShade in that category, too. - Number of mods: I use around 250 - 300 mods for Skyrim, and used 450+ mods in Morrowind, Oblivion. You're smearing the whole upper range of mod use. I'm extreme, but I've seen other people talk about using similar numbers of mods.

Just noticed this great post (2nd one from the top) for texture recommendations by WhiskeyRiver2. It's a much faster read than the steam guide. :wink:

I generally avoid mods that include multiple random features, because they're usually done by new modders that don't understand the implications. And because I might only want one of the changes. It also makes trouble-shooting problems a much bigger hassle. I've seen other people say the same thing about viewing it as a red flag. For example, if I see something like "changes grenade damage, explosion range, and also Curie's hairstyle 'cuz I didn't like it", I will click past as fast as possible. Even if you're just doing it for yourself, if you continue to extend the mod you'll probably hit a point where you'll be sorry you made that decision. Just my $.02.

I'm a big fan of ENB presets. There are some amazing mods out there and IMO ENB is the only thing that can really do lighting justice. SweetFx is pretty much a real-time photo editor, and ReShade does some cool stuff, but isn't game/engine specific. ENB actually hooks into the game engine, and understands details about the scene, the sky, clouds, sun, distances between objects, etc. (Though many of the best mods use both ENB and ReShade.) If you really want control over lighting, try out a few different ENB presets and learn to tweak them to fit your preferences. I tend to switch between different presets every week or two, switching to a different style to suit my mood. I have custom tweaks for a few of the presets I frequently return to, like grimwolf's Institute ASD or Decent ENB. For mods, including texture mods, this steam post is a good place to start. Reddit has many similar threads that are worth searching through, though AFAIK there's nothing as organized as the steam guide. Vanilla Fallout looks decent, but some of Bethesda's textures are blurry or low resolution. IMO even 2k texture mods can significantly improve the look of the game.

Regarding A4 from the posted FAQ, if you're using a mod like Unique Player you can get a result like that. With UP and similar mods you need to copy the appropriate textures into the new directories for player body assets.

FWIW, my current install is 50GB in the main Fallout 4 directory, and 20GB in the NMM virtual install directory (Mod Organizer would be the same). I just started playing the game again, so it'll probably grow by at least 10GB if I install more textures. If you use NMM or MO, you'll end up storing 2 copies of each mod. So, it's a good idea to keep NMM/MO on a separate mechanical drive, and the game on SSD. One thing to keep in mind is that if you're playing with a 1080p resolution, you don't need the 4K or greater texture sizes, except maybe in a few special cases. You won't be able to tell the difference between 2K and 4K, so it's just wasted space on disk and in VRAM. Looking at the Fallout Texture Overhaul for the Pipboy, the 2k version is 26MB. The 4k version is 86MB. So double the resolution, but 3.3x the size.