Out of curiosity... (general discussion about mods)

[RaNgeR240]

Hi, guys.

 

I opened this topic following a thought I had out of curiosity, about better understanding other peoples' ways of taking their Fallout 4 for a spin, using various great mods - old and new - this community has granted us. Of course my thoughts and questions referred to both modders and users, again just to clear my head. It is not so much of a drastic discussion, and I have no intentions to present frustrating statements of some sorts, nor judging, insulting, or giving bad feedback towards a group of players that I will mention further down. So, again, not this sort of discussion I'm trying to make, only to learn and maybe adopt other lines of thoughts.

 

Alright, so right off the bat - I'm playing Fallout 4 since release, back in 2015. Unlike many that I've encountered, I can say that I "only" have almost 270 hours in total of play time as of today, and had maybe 5-6 playthroughs both vanilla and modded. Before that I played FO3 and NV which I lived on back in the day, especially NV.

 

Currently I'm working on my newest playthrough, of course using mods again but this time I wanted to begin better from scratch, have a clean install, better optimizing the game (since I also have a new system) and better sort out the mods I picked so I have as less CTDs as possible. Still haven't started to play, because I'm navigating through YouTube, Nexus and Steam for every piece of information I can gather to better prepare the game.

 

Now, for the main point of observation I wanted to share:

I watched many YouTubers doing vids about their own recommended mods and reviews, as well trying and testing mods myself by simply navigating Nexus. I came across so many mods, especially those considered bests of all time, and yet I find it weird that even today, people still playing with mods that haven't received any more updates whatsoever, the same mods I wanted to play with myself but just couldn't bare the thought of maybe suffering from numerous CTDs and whatnot. I'm talking about mods that were last updated over a year, and some even much longer (more or less), but again are still being used by many regardless.

 

When I read the posts and bugs section of each mod page I find interesting, I see mostly complaints and reports about bugs, CTDs, and other issues that some are related to collisions with other mods, or simply causing corruptions in the save. Then again I watch those YouTubers that have enough experience over the years playing not only Fallout but also Skyrim, making playthroughs with 100+ mods, and yet they don't seem to have any trouble suggesting others about mods that, once again, haven't received updates for long period of time (they don't actually mention issues or the fact the mods are outdated). In comparison to the posts/bugs section in Nexus, I find only reasons not to download the same exact mods, and rather stick to the most recent ones or the ones that are being updated regularly.

 

Let's say you have download them old, outdated and unsupported mods - how do you manage to keep track for collisions that may break your save at some point, especially when playing with a truckload of mods?

 

I'm hoping anyone who find this topic intriguing enough to share their thoughts and answers as well, will also help me understand better as I mentioned before, and that I have presented my points clear enough to conduct a good and informative discussion.

 

Thank you for reading!

[HeyYou]

Use a good mod manager that will inform you about conflicts, or, get familiar with FO4Edit. :D Also, keep in mind that not all conflicts are 'bad'. A fair few of them are INTENDED. :)

 

I have no problem using mods that haven't been updated for a while. (some of my mods are several years old, with no updates.) I run a little over 100 mods on FO4, and my game is quite stable. Granted, my load order could probably use some cleaning up.... there are some duplicates.... but, it doesn't cause troubles, so, I don't dink with it. :D

[SKKmods]

I only use mods that introduce new content and comprehensivley document everything they do.

 

Since there are no changes to existing/shared content, there are no conflicts.

 

So I have to spend zero time on that crap and in 5000 hours have never lost a save game.

 

EZ

[romalight]

Hello. is all about what kind of mods you like to use. Build settlements / fight with better guns and new armors / like to see better textures / start new quests / using new companions and more. So you need to decide, because you have experience with Fallout 4, since you play this game from 2015. There are many good mods here and if a mod you like from here you read is deleted, well you can search and find it somewhere else -there are many Fallout 4 mod sites at Russian language (if you want me to tell you who are they, you can send me a private message from my profile)

 

i find this post here, have a list with good mods. Don't use the ENB there, because is not good.

 

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/8407338-must-have-mods-start-with-those-and-add-others/

 

Always read the bud section of a mod and also the comments.

That's all. Thanks.

[Dreadshow]

I keep several loadorder.txt copies at various stage of mod additions/Removal and it's plugins.txt counterpart.

 

My main one is due for a cleanup/reorder and I probably have 3 or 4 LOFINALxx.txt but yeah it helps, in trying new mods, adding removing etc.

 

Quest and Wolrdspace mods are usually the biggest culprits for CTDs so Add Workshops and Frameworks save a loadorder version of it, then add all your game setting mods , save a version of it with both and separate, then add NPCs and Items, etc and so on.

 

Use guides to keep your LO sorted.

When ever I remove or Add a mod I save my LO first and remove or add the entry manually, I use Vortex and it's not that great at sorting plugins I find.

 

I CTD probably once every 10 hours of game play.