Ketsuban

Hm! That's something of an improvement over Alternative Start Arrive by Ship, certainly, though it doesn't quite fit the bill; TuStartingOptions and MOE Main Quest Delayer with Alive Kvatch essentially postpone the main quest (to the extent you can go and meet the Emperor in the Imperial Palace) until you commit a crime and go to jail, whereas Alternative Start Arrive by Boat just leaves the Amulet of Kings on the body of a random assassin (scarcely any better than a rat, if you ask me) and skips the prison sequence altogether.

There's a couple of different alternative-start mods available at the moment, and they all do different things well. My current one is Alternative Start Arrive by Ship; I like the polish he's put on the cabin in which you start - it's neutrally lit so making a character's face look good is easy, in particular - but the way he starts the main quest ("I had a dream about the emperor's death, and found the Amulet of Kings on the body of a dead rat") is lame. On the other hand, I love the fact that TuStartingOptions or MOE Main Quest Delayer with Alive Kvatch allow you to run around in the world before the main quest begins. (In particular, making use of resources from Kvatch Rebuilt is a brilliant idea on the part of the latter.) However, the dreamworld from TuStartingOptions is DREADFUL for making a good-looking character face - harsh coloured directional lighting from only one side - and starting as a peasant in Anvil in MOE Main Quest Delayer with Alive Kvatch (man, that name is cumbersome) is not a very interesting start for a character. So, my proposal - merge all of them and call it Open Cyrodiil. You fill out your immigration form (Alternative Start Arrive by Ship), then sleep. When you awaken, you take your stuff out of the sack which has appeared next to the bed and open the door to find yourself on the boat in Anvil (TuStartingOptions). You can run around, do sidequests, visit the intact and thriving Kvatch (MOE Main Quest Delayer with Alive Kvatch), whatever; but commit a crime in the Imperial City, and you go to the jail cell where the main quest begins. I had a go at doing this myself, but I got so completely lost that I don't think I'd be able to produce anything which actually functioned. As such, I'm asking more experienced modders to do it, because I really want to see a well-constructed main quest delayer.

I'm intending to run with Deadly Reflex and Unnecessary Violence. What advice do people have on setting up the controls so I'm not struggling to reach keys which get used often etc.?

I'm rather perturbed by the state of bugfix modding for New Vegas - it's patchy and uncontrolled, and doesn't scale well for the future. I'm going to use a comparison with Oblivion; I know Oblivion has been out for a long time now, isn't getting patches anymore, and has had a lot of time to produce a bugfix mod to fix as many bugs as it can, but I'm not expecting a mod that fixes every bug in New Vegas; just that the lessons from Oblivion's modding history be remembered and taken into account. Oblivion has a single extremely detailed and comprehensive mod called the Unofficial Oblivion Patch which includes an extremely detailed set of notes which explain precisely what bugs are fixed. By comparison, New Vegas has a flurry of mods each of which fixes exactly one bug in an entirely ad-hoc manner. The closest thing to a compilation "fixes" things that aren't bugs - there's a reason the stuff in Doc Mitchell's house isn't tagged as owned; doesn't fix things which are more likely to be bugs - Easy Pete's belongings not being tagged are more likely to be accidental; includes an overhaul mod (FOOK); and looks to be obsessed with crediting everyone who ever wrote a mod to fix a single bug simply because they happened to get to it first (as if that counts as any sort of prize or is worthy of special mention). Is it too late to have someone produce a single Unofficial New Vegas Patch ESP which fixes many bugs and doesn't obsess with crediting whoever first wrote a mod to fix bug #9235 of 59363? Again, I'm not looking for completionism - just for a good foundation to expand on as more bugs come to light.