A new guide to running over 250 mods without problems (WIP)

[DontBlnkBadWolf]

Forgive me for the 11 month delay, with my job's peak season last year (I work for Gatoraid & peak season is already in swing) and me taking a 5 month break from FO4 for a 5 month "The Witcher" series play through, I am now back to the wasteland. And being away not playing FO, it actually helped this list out tremendously, because there is a new type of plugin for mod authors to make and release. I also must say that because of this new type of plugin, the title of this guide should now be: A new guide to installing and running up to, or over, 250 plugins. This will always be a Work In Progress (WIP), because mods may change how they work or work with others (or if I no longer want to use a certain mod). You do not have to get the mods that I have, you (may) have different tastes than I do. I am just making this guide to help you get everything to work.

 

Please note: While I am making this guide to installing and running up to, or over, 250 plugins, I am not saying that this will fully work for you. That all depends on what mods you have downloaded and if those mods will work together with each other. That is up to you on reading each mod's description on the first page of the mod you are wanting to download. If it conflicts with a mod you already downloaded, or plan to load, then it is up to you on if you want to patch the mods so they can work together, or look on those mod page's Files tab to see if there is a patch already made. You could also search the mods to see if someone else has already made a patch and published it.

 

Again, it is up to you to make sure your downloaded mods work together.

 

There a new plugin technique called ESL, in which it's a plugin but, doesn't count fully like an ESP plugin would. And that sounds like a good place to start, so let me discuss ESLs briefly:

 

ESLs:

 

ESLs are "Light" plugins. They should be called ESLMs, because they are "Light Master" plugins, where as they load like a "Master' plugin, but do not count on your mod list like a ESP would. You still have to activate them, and it dose count on your Total & Active plugin lists, but that is where it ends. ESLs are 4Kb or less ESP plugins converted into ESLs. While I do not profess to have any technical smarts to explain further into what a ESL is, I will provide a link that gets into greater detail about them Here, and will copy it below this if you don't want to be redirected. It is from the Creation Kit Wiki.

 

 

Files

There are three types of data files -- Master Files and Plugin Files, and new as of the 1.10 Update, Light Master files. Master files (normal and Light) and plugins are largely identical in format, but have some important distinctions in practice.
Master

.esm

The Creation Kit will not create master files.
NOTE: An exception to this rule is when using the Creation Kit's built in version control system. The merging process takes the interim esp data and merges into a master file to be used by the collaborators. See this page for details Version Control and Multiple Contributor Collaboration

Plugin

.esp

A plugin ESP file created in the Creation Kit may only rely on data from itself and any master ESM files.
Plugins are not required to contain any data.
Plugins are not required to have a master if they are empty or add new content.
Plugins can only refer directly to data from a master file, though they can refer to multiple master files.
Plugins can only refer to information in another plugin indirectly by using scripts.
It's also possible to create plugins that depend on other plugins using third-party tools.

Light Master

.esl

Light Master (.esl) files are a new optimized file format, introduced in Fallout 4 v1.10. They behave like a normal plugin, except for the following:
.esl files cannot be edited in the Creation Kit. Active development should be done in an normal .esp file.
.esl files bypass the 8-bit plugin ID limit (255), by using more of the Form ID for their load order.
.esl files have a budget of no more than 2,048 forms, with Form IDs 0x800 to 0xFFF available for use.
A maximum of 4096 .esl files can be loaded by the engine at once, but more Form IDs in an .esl file means that less .esl files can be loaded.
Using .esl files that each have 2048 Form IDs, the limit drops to about 300 loaded .esl files.
.esl files are merged into plugin slot 0xFE at runtime. Their runtime Form ID is 0xFE[000](Hex Load Order)[000](Original Form ID).
Form 0xFA0 from the 10th loaded .esl file would be 0xFE00AFA0 at runtime. From the 200th .esl file, it would be 0xFE0C8FA0.

To convert a normal plugin (.esp) to a light (.esl) master, load your .esp file, and under File, select Convert Active File to Light Master.
It is good practice to run Compact Active File Form IDs to optimize your Form IDs within the 2,048 form budget before converting.
Compacting Form IDs does also change Form IDs in the .esp file, so be sure do this before converting to .esl, and be sure to save the .esp file afterwards.
Do not compact Form IDs on an .esp file you have already released and are updating. Because Form IDs change, you essentially create a new plugin when compacting, and this new plugin will not be compatible with saves using the old version.

Updating .esl files has more restrictions than updating .esp files, but not many.
Because of the 2,048 Form ID limit, it is important to be careful when deleting forms not to reuse Form IDs.
A saved weapon form could be deleted in your plugin, then have an armor form take the FormID when compacted.
Again, be sure to save compacted .esp files, because otherwise compacting again with new forms might give different Form IDs for forms already in a game save.
As long as development is done on compacted .esp files that match released .esl files, forms can be added under the 2,048 form limit, and existing forms can be edited without issue.

.esl Files released by Bethesda Game Studios (Creation Club releases) are flagged as master files and always load immediately after the official Bethesda masters, in the order specified by the game's .ccc file. These .esl files cannot be deactivated.
.esl Files released by modders are flagged the same as .esp files, but these also load with the master files, in the order specified in plugins.txt. These .esl files will need to be activated before the game will load them.
.esl Files created by modders cannot use standard .esp files as masters or this will cause the .esp file to also load before the .esl in the master files section. This is new behavior for the game engine as of Skyrim Special Edition v1.5.3.
Any dependencies of the normal plugin a light master depends on are not loaded early.
Creating light masters that are dependent on normal plugins is highly discouraged.

Save

.fos

A Fallout Save (.fos) is used to restore the games state between sessions.
The Creation Kit will not create, edit or view save files.

Tooling

The Creation Kit is the primary tooling for working with data files.
FO4Edit
There are other community software projects that provided tooling for working with data files.

Notes

By tradition, the file extensions stand for Elder Scrolls Master and Elder Scrolls Plugin.
While not directly supported, a .esl can be converted back to a .esp for editing in one of the following ways.
Rename the file back to .esp. Open it for editing with FO4Edit, and in the Header section edit the flags to trigger a re-save. Simply choosing the ESM flag on and off again will suffice. Then save. It will then be binary identical to the original .esp it was created from.
With the current version of the Creation Kit (1.10 at time of writing) you can also simply rename the .esl to .esp and open it. The Creation Kit will identify it as a plugin ignoring the header flag and allow editing. When You are finished you just save like normal. If you save as a normal .esp the header is automatically converted back to that of a standard plugin. You may use the convert to .esl function to publish the file as a .esl master again. This behavior may change in the future.

 

 

Remember: ESLs do NOT count against your 255 mod limit, but you still have to activate them in order for them to load into the game.

 

I will be taking breaks from typing this guide. When I do take a break, I will announce it on here & I will save the changes I made to this edited first post here, so that people know that I am working on this. When I'm done with my break, I will return and edit my first post (this post).

 

Now onto Mod Managers. At the time of this current edit, on 16 June 2018, there are currently 3 Mod Managers. There is one more under development by Black Tree Gaming (Nexus), Vortex is the name of the new Mod Manager and is under the skillful hands of Tannin. What manager to use is strictly your taste and/or what you are comfortable & familiar with. They are listed below in Alphabetical order:

 

Mod Organizer (MO) Mod Organizer is linked to the Nexus Skyrim website, but it can be used for Fallout 4. Tannin created it, but is no longer supporting or updating since he was hired by Nexus to work on the new Nexus Mod Manager Vortex. I have not fully used MO and only used it for Skyrim LE for a short time.

 

Mod Organizer 2 (MO2) Mod Organizer 2 has been developed by Tannin - ModOrganizer2 Team and currently being worked on and updated by LePresidente and his team. I have not used this one.

 

Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) NMM was developed be Black Tree Gaming and is no longer being updated by them because of the new mod manager Vortex, that Tannin and the Black Tree Gaming team is working on. It is still in Alpha stages, but can be downloaded and used. I am very familiar with NMM & comfortable using it. On to the Manager setup and usage. The setup and usage will be based on the Nexus Mod Manager (NMM).

 

You will also need to download and install 2 helpful tools: Wrye Bash and FO4Edit If I get a chance, I may make a couple of quick videos about them. But feel free to search around on how to use them.

 

NMM Category Setup:

 

You maybe wondering why I am going to talk about the different categories and setting the categories up. It is because I have OCD, and when you look at the screenshots I am supplying, you will see what I mean by category setup.

 

 

The link is to my ImageShack screenshot webpage so you can see my OCD in action.

 

 

Now that you have seen the screenshots, you see how my OCD can work. If you look at them again you will see that I have them numbered. From 001 Load First to 025 Must Be Last. Another reason on the change of category names, there are mods on the Nexus that are not put into a proper category by the mod author, or they slapped several different tags and it has multiple categories that it could be listed in. Either case is no concern to me because of my renamed category list.

 

Another reason for my name changes, it keeps me from having to use LOOT (Load Order Optimization Tool). LOOT is a good tool to have, if you really don't want to organize your load order on your own. For me, I'd rather do it my own way. Another mod user, Osias192 said:

 

"You're going to hate what i have to tell you..... LOOT for fallout 4 can't really do large load orders, not at all really. I recently had to learn the proper way and manually organize it all myself.

HOWEVER, after doing that you'll really notice a difference.
My suggestion is to visit https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/10844/?=1 and the Armorsmith Extended page, the Mod author posts his load order in the comment section and its a good reference to use with the link.
And if case you'll wondering, organizing load order was an all day thing for me..... so buckle in."

 

I wish I could remember which mod user said on a post on a mod the I can't also remember, but it actually makes sense and works, so LOOT is not needed to be used. I am going to quote what was said, and I know I am paraphrasing with this quote since I can't remember who said it and where.

 

"If you load your mods in groups of the same type of mod (Weapons, Armor, Clothes etc), then there is no need to use LOOT. If you follow this method, you should not run into any problems."

 

Also, mod author Statsmakten on his Diamond City mod said the following:

 

"Just want to add that one should always load mods that change worldspace last and in order of scale:

96: Mod that makes tiny changes to a single interior
97: Mod that affects a single exterior cell
98: Mod that affects several exterior cells in different locations
99: Mod that overhauls a huge area with both interior and exterior cells (Like Diamond City Expansion)"

 

So, what mods change the FO4 Worldspace, you may ask? Location mods change worldspace. Mods that changes locations like Sanctuary, Diamond City, Red Rocket, Goodneighbor, etc. Which is why it is numbered 24 on my category list. Alright, now that I got that intro out of the way (I will touch on it again, once or twice, during this mod list post), onto the first step that I will go over.

 

ENBs

 

ENBs can enhance your visual playing experience. All ENBs are different, so when you do a Nexus search for an ENB, it's all about how you want your wasteland to look. Also look into ENB Shadow Boost as well. Since this time around on my current play through, I am not using any ENB, so I cannot say if ENB Shadow Boost is working correctly or not.

 

 

For each category, I will list the mods (with links) that I am using. I will also, briefly, go over what I consider to be mods that will go into said category. For the description of the mods, what they do, how they work please follow the links to those mods for proper installation instruction. Also, some of the mods I use require you getting F4SE. For reasons as expressed by the creator of F4SE, I cannot link the website on The Nexus. Do a Goggle Search for F4SE and download it from there. You will have to manually install F4SE into your FO4 data folder. As soon as you install F4SE, restart NMM and in the upper left hand corner, you may have to change (from the drop down menu there), from it showing Launch Fallot4 to show Launch F4SE. And you are going to be launching the game through NMM and not through Steam.

 

 

001 Load First

 

Why is this called Load First? Because these mods are ESM & ESL plugins that get loaded into the game 1st anyway. So, why not go ahead and put them in the category first so when you install those mods, they will show on your load order first. This is also where I will mention to you that the below mods are not the only mods that designate them as ESM/ESL. As I stated before, I will restate here again, it is up to each of you to research the mod you are thinking about using and find out if it is a ESM/ESL plugin or not. If it is not stated on the mod's description page, then download it, install, then check your plugins list and find out that way. That is the way that I learned to find out if a certain mod was a master or not.

 

The mods that designate them as ESMs are, but not just limited to: Homemaker, Settlement Keywords Expanded (SKE), Armorsmith Extended (AE), Weaponsmith Extended (WSE). I used to use those 4 but, on this playthrough, I am not using them. Nothing is wrong with them, I am just going a different route in the playthrough.

 

001 - Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch (UFO4P) by: Unofficial Patch Project Team - This should be the first mod you install, but don't let the designation fool you. It lists it as a ESP, but it is actually a ESM.

002 - Armor and Weapons Keyword Community Resource (AWKCR) by: Gambit77 and Valdacil - This is another must download and install if you want to use mods in Fallout 4

003 - F4SE - small description above

004 - HUDFramework by: registrator2000 - Give you the options to change the way your HUD will look through other downloadable HUD mods. F4SE is required to run this mod.

005 - Mod Configuration Menu by: registrator2000, Neanka & shadowslasher410 - The Mod Configuration Menu (MCM), is a settings page for mods! It provides a central location for mod configuration, accessible via the Pause menu.

006 - DEF_WIDGETS_CORE by: Neanka - HUDFramework & F4SE are required. This is second base mod needed to run widgets on your HUD.

007 - Extended Dialogue Interface by: registrator2000 & Neanka - F4SE & MCM are required. You will be able to see every word when you are given dialogue choices during cutsceens.

008 - Advanced Recruitment Beacon by: pra - A radio beacon which turns off after attracting a certain number of settlers.

009 - Achievements by: Expired6978 - Uses F4SE to re-enable achievements while mods are active. Must have this activated before launching F4SE through NMM. Steam Achievements are enabled even with mods active.

010 - Place Everywhere by: TheLitch - Place/build objects in settlements everywhere you want, change objects whatever you like. No more RED! F4SE required.

011 - CCCleaner by: Neanka - Takes everything related to the Creation Club off of the Main Menu. F4SE required.

012 - Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Enhancer (CBBE) by: Caliente & Ousnius - The well-known body enhancer made famous in Skyrim is back for Fallout 4. This really didn't have to be loaded first, it just has a long installation time, so I added it to the Load First category.

013 - BodySlide and Outfit Studio by: Ousnius & Caliente - An easy to use tool for customizing bodies and outfits, creating new bodies and outfits, and converting outfits between body types. If you are installing CBBE, might as well install this right after it. This only counts on your Mods Total, no plugin.

 

002 HUD and PipBoy Changes

 

HUD & PipBoy Changes category is up next. Here is where I put the widgets mods and anything else that alters menu items and even PipBoy textures. After the first 9 mods, all of the rest of the mods in this category, and other categories, no longer need to be installed in a set order. I will drop the numbering after those 9.

 

014 - DEF_UI by: Neanka and Valdacil and Old Nick and ParasiteX and sekoms - DEF_HUD is a fully customizable HUD. DEF_INV provide many improvements to Pipboy, container, and barter inventory screens.

015 - DEF_MCM Mods Configuration Menu Light by: Neanka - Part of the MCM family, can't run menus without it.

016 - DEF_MCM Light Official Plugins List by: Neanka - Keep it updated for support all possible mods which probably will use DEF_MCM.

017 - Ammo Count Widget by: Neanka - Tiny ammo count widget for HUDFramework.

018 - Holo Time 2 Widget by: MatrixDJ96 - Widget that displays both in world game time and Real World time. Very useful for players that only have on PC monitor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Break Time, may end it for the night. I know I have not done much, but it was Father's Day in the U.S. spending time with the Family.

[gromulos]

you do realize that most rigs can't even reach the 255 mod limit due to hardware, right? My old rig could only run 138 mods in both Skyrim and FAllout New vegas, at 139 or higher instant CTD on startup, My new rig which can run Fallout 4 on Ultra, can STILL only run 182, 183 or higher instant CTD.

[mikazu]

looking forward to this, i really need some help with fine tuning my modlist, hopefully i can get some pointers here.

[Ethreon]

you do realize that most rigs can't even reach the 255 mod limit due to hardware, right? My old rig could only run 138 mods in both Skyrim and FAllout New vegas, at 139 or higher instant CTD on startup, My new rig which can run Fallout 4 on Ultra, can STILL only run 182, 183 or higher instant CTD.

Your situation is not a standard.

[gromulos]

 

you do realize that most rigs can't even reach the 255 mod limit due to hardware, right? My old rig could only run 138 mods in both Skyrim and FAllout New vegas, at 139 or higher instant CTD on startup, My new rig which can run Fallout 4 on Ultra, can STILL only run 182, 183 or higher instant CTD.

Your situation is not a standard.

 

 

I never said it was. I was just letting him know the info so that he could "CHOOSE" to include it if "HE" thought it was important and relevant enough to do so. SHEESH!

[SMB92]

139 is the limit in New Vegas period. Something wrong with the indexing in that one, found that slot 139 is the 255th slot lol.

 

I'm sporting 221 plugins right now, God knows how many I've hand merged over time into my patch. This game has no problems in that regard, more bandwidth and less latency is of great benefit though.

[Ethreon]

Then it's a good thing this is not for NV, right?

[DontBlnkBadWolf]

In order to make this understandable, here are the specs of my home built rig:

 

MB: Gigabyte Z97-HD3

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz that can be overclocked to 3.9GHz (I have yet to find the need to overclock it)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 w/4GB of DDR5

RAM: 24 GB DDR3 1600

 

I understand that everyone can't run everything on my soon to be typed out mod list (I will be using the first post as the listing of the mods), but that still does not mean that I am commanding anyone to use only what mods I have listed. There was another list by Haoswidasee, but he has stopped updating. His last update was April 18th 2017, and I was/ am following that. The only messages I get from following his list is from others asking when his next update is, other messages were complaints that he was self promoting his music. I think that he has made his music full time now, but enough about that page & what he is doing.

 

Yes, it does matter how many mods a person can run, the 255 limit is for plugins. I have, at one time, ran 254 plugins with over 300 mods. As you can guess, the difference is from texture mods that do not use plugins. That, many old-time FO4/TES mod users will tell you, is the key to running mods. Paying more attention to the plugins and closely keeping an eye on total mods. Many plugin mods can be combined with FO4Edit, if you don't know how to use it, you should read up on it. Some Mod Creators will even type it in there description or comments on how to go about merging plugins. I myself will list a mod that has like 16 ESPs, but I only use maybe half of them and then combined them into one single ESP.

 

But I will go into more detail on that when I finally have a couple of days off from work, hence the reason for typing July 3rd & 4th (well not really the 4th, more like after midnight on the 5th).

[SMB92]

Then it's a good thing this is not for NV, right?

Sure is. I have a feeling Obsidian may have done it on purpose, but don't quote me on that.

[gromulos]

139 is the limit in New Vegas period. Something wrong with the indexing in that one, found that slot 139 is the 255th slot lol.

 

 

I love how people make "bland" statements and have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. I refer you to the SECOND part of my post...

 

 

My new rig which can run Fallout 4 on Ultra, can STILL only run 182, 183 or higher instant CTD.

 

This was directed towards Fallout New Vegas, YES, I can run 182 mods, NOT 138 like my old rig