GrandsonOfSam

Both of the installation guides are correct. In general, if you are using a Compatibility Patch (or a FOIP), the instructions in the Compatibility Patch are (mostly) correct. Compatibility Patches are made to make two or more mods work together with the least amount of problems possible, and are in a sense mods of other mods. The Merged Patch is actually a mod too, which modifies records of the other mods, and should also be an override for every mod it is made to affect, so it will always load last. I hope that helps you to understand why two opposites can both be right. :)

That is not a bug that mods cause as such, it's just a "feature" that is left after the last bugfix by the devs. DarNUI does work, but it can be very confusing to install. Try following the ReadMe closely. It's still alpha, so it's not the easiest mod to install. Having your Load Order here to see would help a lot so we could see which mods you might have modified to work with Hair Pack. However, if you have made a Merged Patch using FO3Edit (which you should have done), you can either remake it (by delating the old one and making a new one) or delete the races records from it. If you have modified some mods themselves by copying records to them, you need to replace their .esm and .esp files with the original ones. For the future: Always make a merged patch that you have the modified records in, as it will make it a lot easier to uninstall mods you don't like. Even that doesn't help in some cases though, but it's a good practice to follow.

It is normal that the Merged Patch doesn't include mods that it doesn't use in the overrides as masters. When you load FO3Edit up, it should read "[00:57] Background Loader: finished" or similar after it is done loading the files. If it does tell you something else, you need to arrange your load order differently, as some masters are not loaded before the files that need them, like they should be. Are you using the FOOK2 1.0 RC version? There is no FOIP for FOOK2 1.1 Open Beta yet, so it doesn't work with FWE at all at this time. There is an unofficial user-made Compatibility Patch for MMM though for 1.1 Open Beta, which you can find from the FOOKUnity forums (from where you can also get more help when using FOOK).

That fix is ages old. If you are using FOOK2 1.1 Open Beta, I would advise you to also get the HotFixes for it Here. Also load the Perks mod before FOOK in your Load Order. If you are using FOOK2 1.0 RC, get the fixes for it from the FOOKUnity website Here. Also, if you are having problems, the best place to get advice and help is the FOOKUnity website. :)

Yes. If the list has 4 type A enemy entries, and 1 type B entry, type B has a 1 in 5 (or 20%) chance of being selected for the spawn.

I also fail to see the reason for this topic in the General Modification Talk, especially from someone who is not a Moderator...

I have one advice, that I think is very important: Start small. As a first mod, do something small first, and consider it as "only" a learning process. After that mod is good enough in your opinion, move on to something more complicated. The advice of an empty worldspace is a two-bladed sword (while it IS a good advice), as on the other hand it makes sure you don't mess with things, but on the other hand you don't have anything that you can learn from. I think downloading the smallest, most basic housing mod from Nexus (or/and going through the GECK tutorial at Here), and editing that at first is by far the best way to learn how things work in GECK. After that you can move on to more complex things. Having a goal you know you can reach in a month will make sure you won't get fed up with the project and abandon it. The big plans can wait till you know you like modding enough that you will actually finish them. :) And yes, do not touch the vanilla wasteland cells, as that will get you in big trouble unless you are VERY good at it. :) (and even then it's not recommended)

Just so you know if you are planning on releasing the mod: If you change the soundlevels, the volume/area for the sounds is changed for everything using the soundlevel you change. Especially the "normal" soundlevel is used a lot, so you might want to think of another way to accomplish what you want. I do use changed soundlevels in my own mod, but that was because I thought the values for silent and normal were not giving the results I wanted from them overall.

I would re-install 1.0, although people have reported 1.0 working fine with 1.1 textures/meshes. Better to be safe though. :)

I won't comment the rest of the load order, but the FOOK2 Hotfixes are for 1.1 Open Beta, which is NOT compatible with FWE, and does have some issues with MMM too. If you on the other hand are using FOOK2 1.0 RC version, remove the Hotfixes, as they are for 1.1 Open Beta. Also if you are using the 1.1 version of FOOK2, do not use the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Broken Steel.esp, as it is highly incompatible with FOOK2 1.1 Open Beta.

Well, the NMC texture pack is extremely hard on your computer. I noticed my FPS plummet to 15 from 56 in Megaton when I used the full 3GB pack, and Rivet City is a LOT laggier place than Megaton. Actually the smaller pack looks pretty much the same as the full sized one, especially if you use higher than 2x Anti-Aliasing, so I would try that one to see if it fixes the problem. Even then you will need a decent gaming PC to get playable FPS. The main problem is the game engine though, which doesn't handle models and textures that well...

Well, I had my first mod almost finished before I tried pressing the "cancel" button... Turned out the button was supposed to be the famous "yes to all" one. :D

Some non-English language windows' have "cancel" (translated to the windows' language) there instead of "yes to all". It works like you said though, whatever the button says. :) What I have noticed (only an observation, correct me if I'm wrong), is that all of the important messages come first that concern the mod file itself, then the master file(s) stuff.

the laser sight is probably from WMK, if it has (LS) in it's name. If not, some other mod changes it. :)

Merged Patch is something you make using FO3Edit. It is kindof a Compatibility Patch for the mods you are using, and the best (the only one?) tool for making sure your mods work together without conflicts. Here's what I wrote on another topic: