Any mods that make use of the empty part of the map?

[MarkoDash]

there's been dozens of mods over the years that take you to various huge locations, but they all do it through a loading gate into a whole new map.

 

why not make use of the big empty area on the west side of the map?

[madmongo]

I have seen mods use that area.

 

One of the issues that you run into is that you need to disable the border regions, which can be done with either a separate mod or by fiddling with the ini files if I recall correctly.

 

Another issue is mod compatibility. Creating your own new worldspace insures that anything in it won't conflict with anything else. You also won't have conflicts with your pip-boy map.

 

A third issue is generating worldspace LOD, which again gets you into mod compatibility.

 

Also, lore-wise, there isn't much in that area. You can "fast travel" to a separate worldspace which is much further away and contains much more interesting stuff.