Modding FNV Is Rewarding, But the Journey There Is Brutal.

[doubleDizz]

I've had a few friends pick FNV up on the cheap through recent Steam sales and I've offered to help them mod their game as heavily as mine. Instead of getting them to download all the mods, I posted some DVD's with step-by-step instructions on how to get the modded game running.

 

Now I know we all know how hard modding FNV can be sometimes, but after proofing my instructions, I couldn't believe how truly brutal it really is.

 

After reading the instruction, one of my mates replied "screw this, this is too hard! I'm just going to play the vanilla version." hahaha.

 

Anyway, here's the instructions I ended up sending out, for your reading pleasure...

 

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LEGEND

FNV = Fallout New Vegas

NMM = Nexus Mod Manager

NVSE = New Vegas Script Extender

FOMM = Fallout Mod Manager (a defunct mod manager)

ENB = 3D graphics modification API (not an initialism)

 

FNV ROOT FOLDER

Find your “Steam” folder, then it should be steamapps > common > Fallout New Vegas

 

INSTALL ORDER

 

Install 7-Zip, file named “7z920.exe”

- Whenever you open a .rar or .7z file, you want it to open with “7-Zip File Manager” not “7-Zip GUI” (the GUI application doesn’t work.)

 

Open the DVD/ENB 161// folder and open the file “enbseries_falloutnv_161”, drag all the “Injector version” files to the FNV root folder.

- Create a shortcut of the ENB Injector.exe and place it on your desktop.

 

Open the “Enhanced Shaders” file in the DVD/ENB 161// folder and drag all the files to the FNV root folder.

- Some files will overwrite the ENB 161 files from before, but that’s ok.

 

In the HD Textures folder, copy all 3 “NMC Texture Pack” files into either the FNV root directory or the /data folder (check the readme file in the archive for the correct location), then double-click the first one and click the “extract” button in 7-Zip.

- Afterwards, delete the archive files.

- This is a permanent change to the game’s textures files. The author literally made a new package yesterday which now works with NMM, but we’re already at the mod quantity threshold (130), so this is probably the better way to do it anyway.

 

Find the NVSE file and check the readme on how to install (I’ve forgotten)

- Open steam and run the NVSE.exe file, it will load FNV.

- Close the game. NVSE is now patched in the game files.

 

Open the FNV4GB archive file and drag the contents into the FNV root directory.

- Open enbinjector.ini with Notepad and add “FNV4GB.exe” to the process order (or whatever it’s called)

 

Install the Nexus Mod Manager, following the prompts. Then run the application.

- Open the “Settings” and find the “Fallout New Vegas” tab. There is a “command line” option at the bottom.

- You need to add the file path for the FNV4GB.exe file to this line. Mine is something like D://Steam/steamapps/common/Fallout New Vegas/FNV4GB.exe. Click ok when done.

- At the top of the NMM application you should see “Launch FNV” with a small down arrow, that arrow button will display more launch options. One of them will be “Launch Custom FNV”. That’s the one you’ll always need to use.

- Close NMM.

 

The next part I haven’t tested…

 

Experiment #1:

- copy everything from the NMM MODS folder to the NMM application’s “mods” folder.

- Once complete, open NMM. Check the “mods” tab, if it’s chockas with mods, then don’t worry about experiment #2. if its empty then this didn’t work, close NMM.

 

Experiment #2:

- Move all those mods you just copied into a temp folder, eg: …Nexus Mods Manager/temp//

- Open NMM again, select the mods tab.

- On the left are a bunch of Windows 98-looking buttons. The top one has a green plus, this is “add mod”

- First mod to add is the ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated. Once loaded, double-click the mod, it will appear as a checked mod and now in your plugin list.

- Now, add every mod one by one (sorry) to NMM.

- You can save yourself some time by adding the mods in the same order I have them. I’ll send you an email tonight with a screenshot of my load order... If you add them randomly, you’ll need to re-arrange them later into the correct load order, so up to you. (You’ll need to move the ArchiveInvalidated mod in the load order though)

 

Eventually you should end up with all the mods installed to NMM. Make sure the load order is correct with the screendump and the same plugins are unchecked. Once you’ve done that, close NMM.

 

Install FNVEdit (at this point I’ve forgotten if this is an install exe or an archive drag and drop file…) and open.

- When opened, you’ll get a list of your NMM load order, all the checked and unchecked boxes should be the same. Click ok.

- FNVedit will now check your load order for conflictions. Wait for “complete” or “successful” in the status bar. If you get an error, we’ll have to sort it out online.

- Right-click on any of the plugins in the left panel, move to other > create merged patch. Name it whatever, eg: Merged Patch v1”

- FNVedit will now create a new plugin (it’s pretty quick) that will solve any mod conflictions or duplications. Those are what cause crashes.

- Click the close button and it will ask if you want to save your Merged Patch. IMPORTANT: In the save pop-up, there should ONLY be your merged patch. If anything else pops up as well, eg: Fallout.esm or HonestHearts.esm, uncheck these. Once you’ve only got your merged patch checked, select save or ok or whatever.

 

Hard yards done.

 

Re-open NMM. Check the bottom of your Plugins load order, your new merged patch should be there. Make sure it’s checked.

Double-click the ENB Injector.exe shortcut on your desktop. This will load up ENB.

Launch the Custom FNV option via NMM.

 

YOU SHOULD NOW BE RUNNING YOUR VERY OWN, HEAVILY MODIFIED, FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS!!

 

Now go to bed, it’s midnight already.

 

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[dangman4ever]

s#*!, when you put it all down like that, I can definitely see why people would not want to mod their FNV.

[luthienanarion]

It's certainly a lot more complicated than you would think before jumping into it, especially when you're examining how well different mods will work together. Thankfully, there are a handful of us veterans that hang out in the support forums.

[mhahn123]

It's only brutal when you mod REALLY heavy like that. I've run the entire gambit of games supported by nexus sites and modded all of them...at first ridiculously modded like your text describes. Eventually you settle on a handful of things that are your own personal must haves and figure out how to make them play nice together. Once you get to that point, modding your games is a smoother process and not so much like rocket science..hehe.