7thsealord

Do you have the Autosave on? For me, that caused a heckuva lot of crashes, particularly at doors/gateways. Disabling it and going to entirely manual saves improved things immensely.

No ideas, sorry. May be something on the Wiki - http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Fallout_3

The obvious thing to ask here is what mods are you running? Noting that the Rivet City area tends to be kinda squirrelly at the best of times. Any mods that affect it can have especially odd effects.

Could also be a COMBINATION of certain mods (not necessarily relevant or related at that), rather than one in particular. Given the complexities of the game, I see this as a distinct probability.

Roaming the Wastes, and got attacked by a Drug Addict. Checking the body afterwards, it turns out he was wearing Lincoln's Hat. And, instead of having a bunch of drugs, he had about 20 Pears. "Watch out for those Wasteland Fruit Dealers, man. You start using their stuff, it can mess you right up..."

Hey, he had me at "Don't Hit Me!"

The Wiki points out a few quirks of Tenpenny that seem to have been based on Howard Hughes.

Sorry, nothing comes to mind. There are several mods that put all sorts of stuff under the Megaton House. Many of which are very very cool, but I always have ... difficulty wrapping my head around the "Why?" part. Surely Lucas Simms or Moira or whomever would have looked in at some point, if only to clear out the previous occupant's stuff. At which point, they might have thought something like "Gee. I wonder where that mysterious hatch in the middle of the living room floor leads to?" or even just "This house is WAY better than mine. I'll swap from my old place - put that up for sale / whatever instead.....". On the other hand, maybe everybody in Megaton secretly has a personal vault hidden under their homes. Could explain a lot. Tweaking one of the aforementioned mods so it is instead hidden under Burke's place (his secret HQ?) and perhaps the basis for a quest or two would seem one way to go.

Nope. I've gone through Fort Bannister like the wrath of ghod, and "visited" Takoma Park, Grayditch, the Capital Building and south of Arlington. No signs of any respawning at those places AND the Talon hit squads still keep showing up. Not that I mind - gotten rich selling their stuff, and the folks at Bigtown are VERY well-protected thanks to their hardware. Used the console to get the key to Burke's house once. Nothing worth the bother - a couple of suits and a pistol. The house itself is just a smaller version of your own Megaton House, with less storage and no extras. Of course, there are always mods .... Seems to me very silly that the folks of Megaton would just abandon that place. It is said a few times that Megaton living space is at a premium, so surely they would put the house on the market or otherwise make use of it ASAP.

There are already a couple of very good mods that put trees and greenery into the DC Wastes. Based on a conversation in another thread, I was thinking that a "tropical" mod for the DC area would be interesting. Specifically, have standard-looking trees and shrubs but also have a large number of palm trees, possibly of varying types. Comes to that, mangrove trees would fit in very well with this - just position a few groups of regular-looking trees along the waterline. Might be stuff in Point Lookout that can be used to this end.

Not an expert. But I know that for many mods, whether being installed or uninstalled, you MUST go someplace and wait three days for the cells involved to reset. Otherwise stuff like this can happen. So, if you haven't already done so, wait in RC three days, then try leaving and saving. If it's OK, problem solved. If it still happens, I got nothing.

... And very little (if anything) to be bought or sold AT Arefu, either. So forget about topping up on ammo or stimpacks or anything else once you get there. You will be limited to whatever you pick up along the way - and you will need to go elsewhere to trade that stuff for anything else. Or just pray you meet a wandering trader. Depending which way you travel, the odds of meeting one between Arefu amd Megaton can be fair.

Don't know a lot about those particular mods (other than that MMM raises the pucker-factor considerably), but it does sound to me like you've bitten off more than you can chew. Go home and level up some more, dude. Also, very strongly suggest checking this thread out - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/276123-what-is-priority-1-when-you-leave-the-vault/

Seen this one? http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15445 Great mod.

Ummm. You might want to consider posting this question in the Fallout: New Vegas forum, which this isn't.

Copying the Data folder to a separate drive is what I do (just in case) - plus a separate folder for the must-have utilities (FOSE, FOMM, G4WL Disabler, ArchiveInvalidation, etc.). I would still have to reinstall the latter, but at least they're all in one place which makes life easier anyhow. Not that I have had to reinstall Windows (touch wood).

There are several good mods that alter that specific problem. My personal favourite is http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15645

Console commands here - http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_console_commands The same Wiki also has particulars for just about everything to do with FO3. The 'Blood Ties' quest is here - http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Blood_Ties

Don't forget to install FOSE, which is essential for a lot of mods. And ArchiveInvalidation. In general, it all depends on what sort of game you want, and just how much your system can actually take. There are several threads here where people list their favourite mods and so forth, so I suggest looking there for starters. Good luck. Despite its many faults, FO3 is a heckuva game.

Not to compare with some of the other stuff, but I would rank my first encounter with the citizens of Amdale as definitely creepy. I tell ya, finding out that they were inbred cannibals was almost a relief.

Thinking on this a little more. Suppose this base's location is "unlocked" after you visit both the Capitol and Takoma locations. A holotape at each locale provides limited data on where the Talon artillery base actually is. Get both and all becomes clear. Still think "somewhere" in the Downtown region is the way to go, but if the gun has sufficient range and some semblance of accuracy, it could be elsewhere.

Uh, wow. Just ... wow.

... Or just put up a big 'GO AWAY' sign outside.

Never say never. Especially if money is involved.

There is always the "Brute Force" approach - start a new game, then use Console commands to add / alter things to suit yourself. Not really my area of expertise, so suggest getting other opinions before you try. Very important note here. You really have to know what you are about if using CCs to advance / alter quest progressions or make other significant changes. It's not just a matter of inputting the right command and everything will be hunky-dory. Far from it. Incidentally, if all you want to "do-over" is Tenpenny Towers - http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9644