crawe1x

Nothing specific, as far as I'm aware. It's more just a sense of inevitability. Out of interest, how do you guys now feel about paid mods? Personally, I can see advantages and disadvantages. If I had to come down off my fence, I would be against, but I'm open to opinions either way. The last time I saw this discussed in these forums, which was earlier this year, several mod makers were very much in favour of paid mods, but it was hard to tell if theirs was the general consensus or if they just represented a very vocal minority.

Have to admit, although it was asking for trouble, the idea of 250+ settlers is pretty damn impressive. Sounds like you were well on the way to taking the Commonwealth population back to pre-War levels. :D

I'm wondering if theft/piracy is the main issue behind the recent spate of disappearing mods. It certainly was six months ago, but since then, I'm pretty sure I've seen comments by senior modders such as Arthmoor claiming that Beth.net has gotten its act together and resolved many of the issues. I can't say either way because I've never used the site. However, if this is true, it suggests the current issue of disappearing mods is more the result of a breakdown between authors and users. From what I've seen, there are some very responsible and knowledgeable users. However, there are also many who have no understanding of how to manage mods or the work that goes into them, and when things go wrong, they're very quick to blame the author. Others seem to have an unbelievable sense of entitlement. It's the "me, me, me" mentality. For instance, I've seen several conversations criticising Astralify, the author of Wonder Body, for daring to provide an alternative body mod to CBBE. It didn't seem to occur to them that not everyone is a fan of CBBE and some might actually like to have other options. Luckily, Astralify comes across as a very philosophic chap, plus there were a lot of other users who closed down these unnecessarily negative comments very quickly. Unfortunately, I can't see this sort of attitude changing. If anything, it will get worse. As mods for consoles becomes more popular, that's going to mean more inexperienced mod users (and possibly more trolls). Inexperience isn't a problem. Everyone has to learn somewhere; when I look back at some of my early posts, I truly cringe. :blush: But inexperience combined with arrogance IS a problem. The introduction of paid mods will also serve to embolden certain users (personally, I have some sympathy here - if you pay for something, you expect a certain level of service... which is one of the reasons I am not a huge fan of the whole paid mods idea). One alternative is that the Nexus could get very ruthless with its moderation, but that then leads to a different set of problems. In the end, I guess the only solution is for modders to develop very thick skins - or alternatively, not to bother uploading their work in the first place, which would be a perfectly reasonable reaction, but also a real loss to this community. I have noticed that certain more experienced modders - expired6978, Ethreon, Millenia, etc. - operate a very no-nonsense policy and quickly slap down any silliness. DDProductions took this attitude to an extreme before getting himself banned. That guy didn't suffer any fools. It was zero tolerance right from the get-go. At the time, I thought he was taking things too far, but maybe he was right all along. It would be a shame if modders had to go down this route, but it may be the only way. Another option might be if more modders start working within a team. CBBE and Raider Overhaul are examples of big projects where modders have come together, allowing them to share the burden, not to mention the frustration of dealing with the demanding user-base. Of course, this approach isn't always going to be practical or desirable for certain mods. So basically there is no easy solution and no end in sight... And in the meantime, as others have said, if there's a mod you can't play without, then for Heaven's sake make a back-up. :wink:

Yeah, regarding Beth's approach to modding, they could definitely do a lot more to help and clarify. Modding is a unique selling point to their games, compared to, say, Ubisoft's very closed games. The success of Skyrim's modding scene played a big part in the commercial success of FO4. All the big YouTubers talked about the modding opportunities, so mainstream gamers were definitely aware if it. Beth themselves know this, otherwise why bother bringing mods to consoles? Given all this, it seems very short-sighted not to offer more official support to the modding community. Instead, mod authors are forced to rely on trial and error to figure things out, which can be hugely frustrating.

I'll check those out. I actually downloaded a bunch of your mods recently for my current playthrough. I was planning on doing a fairly 'clean' mission-focused playthrough this time, but then I got to Red Rocket, opened up the build mode, and found my head spinning from all the new options. :D I ended up spending two nights (real time) turning Red Rocket into quite the extravaganza. So I'm both excited but also dreading what happens when I start on Sanctuary and Spectacle Island using your new toys. It does make me wonder though. It was pretty cynical of Beth to release so many workshop DLCs, when this is something that the modding community can do so well.

I'm assuming you've completed the entire Automatron quest-line and unlocked the Mechanist's Lair? I just did this in my current playthrough and now have access to all mods, including the Assaultron Right Arm, which I assume I picked up by looting some robot. Easiest fix would be to give it to yourself via the console. I did this once when it was taking forever to find Assaultron Legs, which I wanted for Ada.

Very strange. Maybe gamefever is right and it is a simple charm/charisma check then?

I've always used Build All The Beds, which is simple and to the point. However, I've just checked out Cozy Beds, which I had somehow missed previously, and it does look very nice. I may have to give it a go.

I think it may be something else. On my last playthrough, I had the exact same problem and response from the Vault Tec Rep. I reloaded save games, etc. but it made no difference. I had maxed out charisma, so charming him shouldn't have been a problem. I'm wondering, do you use Don't Call Me Settler or any other big settlement management mods? One of those might be causing the problem. Personally, I quite liked the way Vault Tec Rep wandered around like a lost soul.

@genolune: And by the way, turning the Institute into a working settlement sounds like a pretty cool idea. After a year of playing this game, I've barely got around to touching the Institute. The furthest I've ever gotten in the main mission is entering the Institute and meeting the old-man Shaun. Then some little thing bothers me about my playthrough and I end up starting all over again. Talk about OCD gaming. :D But one of these days, I will get to the end, in which case a mod like yours would be a very nice addition.

Yes, in my opinion, very much so. It's that sort of positive attitude that makes this community so vibrant. I mean, if you didn't care about the community, then you wouldn't release your mod, right? Instead, you would just do it for your own enjoyment so as to learn new skills and then keep it for yourself. My point, however, is that the community is not a two-tier system made up of mighty mod authors and a bunch of parasitic scumbag users greedily devouring any scraps that fall off the table. It's someone like you who makes this community work so well, irrespective of whether you release your mod. I mean, you're active on these forums and on the mod comments pages, and what you write always strikes me as being reasonable and constructive. I don't think that sort of thing should be taken for granted, but unfortunately it often is. If it was just about releasing mods, the Nexus might as well scrap the comments pages, the forums, the private messaging, etc. and just have a download page (which is what happens on some other mod sites). Sure, there are a lot of annoying and entitled users. For all I know, maybe I'm seen as one of them. :unsure: Others are just new to the site and don't understand the 'local' conventions. Maybe their wording is a little clumsy or gauche. No harm intended. In addition, there are some outright scumbags and thieves. There will always be spoilers like that. But all that aside, I'm not sure it's wise for mod authors to get too high-handed and dismissive towards users, no matter how tempting. Doing that will just lead to a very cold and ugly community. Check out this page: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/images/58635/? Here's a new mod author developing what looks like an amazing new weapon mod. I'm really looking forward to it. Look at all the praise and recognition he's receiving. Now imagine if he'd released these images and no one had bothered to comment. I think for new mod authors in particular, supportive users are absolutely key. Otherwise, you're working in a vacuum, which makes for an immensely lonely existence.

Yes, I understand absolutely. As I already said above, I am one of those mod creators - over a decade of modding purely for myself (not for Beth games but for the TW games). When I started, I was young, single, and had a full head of hair. Now I'm not so young, married with three kids, and totally bald. :tongue: That's how long I've been modding. Nor am I saying that mod authors should make mods specifically for users. However, by definition, the moment you put a mod into the public domain, you are to all intents or purposes creating a customer base of sorts. The currency isn't monetary (Nexus donations aside). Rather the currency is based on endorsements, kudos, recognition, and general praise. Nor am I claiming that you, personally, are fixated by these things. These sorts of things matter to some authors more than others. But seriously, are you telling me that if you put a huge amount of work into a mod, then released it on this site, and no one bothered to download it or even comment on it... Are you telling me you'd be absolutely fine with that? C'mon... And if so, then why bother going to the trouble of releasing the mod in the first place? Why not just keep it for your own enjoyment. Some modders claim they release a mod because they did it for themselves and thought it might be useful for others. That may be true of smaller mods - quick edits in xEdit, etc. But no one sinks 100 hours into a mod just to be helpful. Modding is hugely enjoyable, but it is also extremely frustrating and at times downright boring/tedious when you're fiddling around with a hundred different database records at 3am. To do this just to be helpful would be verging on the masochistic. As far as I can tell, most modders make mods for one of three reasons: (i) Personal enjoyment (ii) Public recognition (iii) The need to be part of a community (which includes the desire to get user feedback and inspire further ideas). If only the first of these applies, then the mod probably won't get released. But if either of the other two reasons are present, then - assuming the author is happy with his work - he will probably release the mod. Nor is there anything wrong with these motivations. They're perfectly natural and human. The result, however, is that the relationship between a mod author and a mod user is symbiotic. The author who treats his users with respect and dedication - and from what I've seen, you are a good example of this - is going to thrive and establish an excellent reputation. Now if you're right and most mod authors really don't give a f**k about the users, then well, what's the point of this community? And why would anyone want to join such a community? In addition, how can modders expect sympathy when some scumbag steals their mod? Personally, I don't think this is the case... At least I hope not. :confused:

This is a slightly disingenuous comment coming from someone who for all his spray-on grouchiness strikes me as one of the most dedicated and supportive members of this community. It's also a dangerous comment. If mod authors really don't care, then this community is already dead. The moment a mod author releases his or her work, the users become the customer-base. The fact that it's all done for free is irrelevant (though soon, with the return of paid mods, this dynamic will become clearer). Now many mod users, like customers in the real world, can be complete idiots - ignorant, pushy, entitled, unrealistic with their demands, etc. At times it is sickening to behold. But high-handedness on the part of the mod authors isn't the best reaction. And if they can't suffer fools, or at least learn to push back in a reasonable manner, then they probably shouldn't be sharing their work on this site in the first place. No one is being forced to release their work. I spent ten years modding Total War, and although I always shared my findings with other modders, I never publicly released a mod - simply because I had no interest in supporting it for every Tom, Dick and Harry. Now although I understand the anger mod authors feel when their work is stolen, I don't see what they hope to achieve by removing their work from the site, especially when it's done without forewarning. It feels like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. In the real world, I'm a screenwriter. I've had my work stolen more times than I can remember. As my agent once said, "That's life." I've made a decent living, but I know there are people out there who have made far more money off my ideas than I have. In spite of this, I don't quit because my work is something I'm passionate about. Regarding the removal of mods, let's look at it logically. An author puts up a mod. Responsible users make use of that mod, enjoy it, and may even help improve it. Then some shyster comes along, steals the mod, and puts it up on another site. In a fit of pique, the author removes the mod from the Nexus. What exactly does he or she hope to achieve? The shyster couldn't care less. He may even savour his 'victory' at having spoiled someone else's hard work. The author, meanwhile, ends up abandoning something that they presumably enjoyed doing in the first place. And the responsible mod users, who have done nothing wrong, find themselves stuck in the middle of a play-through with a bunch of missing or unsupported mods. Basically, what I'm saying is that yes, mod authors have rights. But responsible users also have rights. This is one of the reasons that, despite some misgivings, I'm open to the idea of paid mods.

You raise some very interesting points here. DCMS may well be the culprit. I certainly agree about the cumulative effect being a factor. However, we also need to remember that having up to 250 settlers is taking the game way, way, WAY beyond what Bethesda had in mind. In the vanilla game, for practical purposes, settlement populations maxed out in the low 20s. Now you're talking about increasing those populations by more than 1000%. In other words, the game is being forced to operate in an manner that it was never really designed to operate in and was therefore never optimized for. I wonder, the fact that you game bugged out, is it down specifically to DCMS or is it down to weaknesses in the vanilla settlement system? I use Puma's old Increased Settler Population mod. Puma himself always warned that the settlement system could get increasingly buggy the higher the population. I previously used the 100 limit version of the mod, but I experienced on two occasions problems like the one you've described, where settlers refused to accept jobs, etc. and when they did, it would often take up to fifteen minutes for them to respond. This happened when I hit the mid-60s in headcount, so well within the limit of Puma's mod. The first time this happened to me was before DCMS was released. The second time was shortly after its release (in other words, when it was being actively supported and working for most people). So I'm not convinced that this (and similar issues) are directly or solely related to DCMS. On my last playthrough, which lasted many months, I used the standard version of Puma's mod, which allows 50 settlers plus charisma (so you max out in the low 60s). However, I always stopped recruiting when I hit the high 40s. Honestly, this felt like more than enough. My main settlement was Sanctuary. Having close to 50 settlers, plus 20+ provisioners streaming in and out, the Bunker Hill caravans, and a bunch of crafted dogs and robots (not Automatrons but the ones from Robot Home Defence) was more than enough. It felt like a bustling community, more active than Diamond City, without being complete overkill. The only other settlements that came even close to this in terms of population (but without all the provisioners passing through) were Spectacle Island and the Castle. I kept all my other 20+ settlements relatively small (i.e. 10-20 population headcount). Using this method, I had zero problems of any kind. Generally, with settlements, I follow a best practice approach: 1. Don't go overboard with the populations and keep well within the limits. A theoretical headcount of 60 should be treated as a practical headcount of 50. 2. I never let settlers spawn naturally. Instead, I only spawn them via the console. I then immediately assign them a job to a work station (all of which have been built beforehand). If a mission objective insists that I build a recruitment beacon, then I will do so - but I then immediately scrap it literally seconds later (pretty much instantaneous) so as to complete the mission objective but before any settlers can respond to it. 3. DCMS is a complex and script heavy mod. I only making sparing use of its functionality. I never use the more complex scripts like auto-assign settlers and Call of the General. I had problems with these commands even when DCMS was fully supported. The only commands I use regularly are Burn Baby Burn and Track Damaged Resources. Very occasionally, I may use the command to call up unassigned settlers (I don't have a need to do this often though, because nearly all my settlers are normally assigned the moment I spawn them into the game). Also, whenever I use these simpler commands, I only use them one at a time and never simultaneously. My overall conclusion is that DCMS has the potential to cause game-breaking bugs, and that this potential may be significantly higher than that of other large complex mods. However, the chances of bugs can be hugely minimized by using some simple rules: be careful about what other mods you use alongside DCMS, keep it near the bottom of your load order, avoid pushing your game way beyond the limits (i.e. 50 settlers rather than 250), and treat DCMS with a degree of caution (i.e. don't use some of the more extreme commands and use the others carefully and sparingly). Now having said all this, I'll probably turn on my game tonight and discover that it's totally bugged out. :laugh: And if that does happen, I'll keep it to myself and eat my humble pie well away from prying eyes. :whistling:

I keep hearing that Beth.net has gotten its act together since the launch, etc. Maybe that's so (I wouldn't know because I don't use the site), but either way it seems to have had a very negative effect on F04 modding, which is a real shame. I think the timing was pretty terrible as well. It seems to have happened just as a lot of mod authors were getting into their stride.

My personal experience is that LOOT spots the masters just fine (then again, NMM normally highlights and manages any problems with masters in the load order anyway). Now maybe I'm just not using LOOT properly, but in my opinion it is weak at picking up certain hidden conflicts. It's kind of 'binary' and isn't so good at finessing the load order so that you get minimum conflicts, bugged save games, etc. My advice is to use LOOT first, but to then go back through your load order very carefully and tinker with it manually.

Yep, on that we can most certainly agree. I've decided against installing a fair few top mods because I suspected they might conflict with DCMS.

@NCRForever: I don't know, it's a complete mystery. I've got 150+ mods, including DCMS, BS, and a fair few other mods that are settler/settlement focused, but I've never experienced any major problems with settlements. Thinking about it further... Maybe it's not Better Settlers - in general terms - causing the conflict. It's been many months since I last updated BS, but could it be a specific setting within that mod? You know, like when you choose the options in the FOMOD? Maybe one of the specific options is causing a conflict. Maybe me and cossayos chose a version that doesn't conflict with DCMS, while you chose one that does? From memory, I have the clean faces/mortal version of that mod (can't remember what other options I chose at the time). Anyway, just an idea. I'm probably talking crap - honestly, I haven't a clue how some of these mods work under the hood.

I use Wasteland Lumberjack, but it's only textures and requires EVB. I believe the same applied to Just A Hairy Body, though memory fails me. Either way, it's a moot point because both mods are no longer available on the Nexus. Wasteland Lumberjack has been hidden and Just A Hairy Body appears to have been completely removed from the database. This is part of a increasingly frustrating trend of mods being hidden or removed entirely from the Nexus over the past few months. I really don't remember this happening anywhere near as much with Skyrim. The links genolune posted may be your only options.

Same here, no problems with the latest versions of DCMS and Better Settlers working together. I do, however, remember seeing instructions on some other mods that suggested loading DCMS first, then Better Settlers, and finally their mod. Maybe if people are following this advice, that could be the cause of the problems. I've always loaded DCMS very close to the bottom of my load order and well after Better Settlers.

Even worse would be Maccready's Long Road Ahead, and boy is it a long road. :sweat: Either way I wouldn't want to find out, so will continue making super regular saves.

I've done this a few times. I don't know the answer, but in my case, rather than risk any strangeness, I always just load a save game. For this reason, if I do any scrapping or disabling within a settlement, I make VERY regular quick saves. Literally every few minutes. Too often I've scrapped entire buildings that I didn't want to scrap and disabled NPCs I didn't want to disable. Out of interest, have you checked to see if you still have her Combat Medic perk effect?

Agreed, but I wouldn't be too surprised if this happens down the line.

Ah yes, I just checked out your mod and I see what you mean. I did craft an explosive minigun some time back, but I ended up turning myself into raspberry jam every time I fired too low and accidentally hit a blade of grass right in front of me. :D

Normally you find the Legendary effects on weapons dropped by Legendary enemies. However, there are a bunch of mods that allow you to directly craft legendary effects onto your weapon at the weapon workbench, just like you would add a new receiver or stock. The most well known mod is Legendary Modification, though I prefer Love To Craft - Legendary, which is more up to date. As far as the actual legendary effects work, this gives a decent overview: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Legendary_weapon_effects It's basically just 'magic'. Instead of giving us incendiary bullets, for instance, Beth gave us Incendiary and Explosive legendary effects. I'm not crazy about the system - it feels too much like Skyrim - but that's the game. I think the most popular effects include Explosive, Instigating, Kneecapper, Never Ending, Powerful/Mighty, Rapid, Two Shot and Wounding. There are some effects that I avoid because they don't make sense and are immersion breaking. Just personal choice. Certain weapons, particularly shotguns, miniguns and SMGs (all of which are given a raw deal in the base game), benefit hugely from specific legendary effects. A shotgun with the Explosive effect basically turns into a kind of cluster bomb missile launcher.