To a layperson, how easy is it to create my own mod/overhaul

[actionhorror]

Have zero experience with creation kit, programming or art design. But I do love Bethesda games and their mods.

 

I am seeing all these cool armors and weapons on the Nexus, some of which I wouldnt wear or use myself but would look awesome on npcs yet have no idea how to add them. My knowledge extends to downloading them into vortex and playing the game, that's about it.

 

I have all these cool ideas (in my head) about Gunners only using high grade ballistic weapons and Coursers using the Blade Runner pistol. Really started thinking about turning the game into my ultimate Fallout game. With blackjack and hookers.

 

I've installed the creation kit, followed a simple youtube video to fire up Swan from Boston Common. Immediately feel overwhelmed by stats and numbers. Leveling data, calculated stats, templates, keywords. Already feel I am in over my head and that's just the base game where all I want to do is increase his health (from the measly amount Bethesda game him) and maybe add a few more caps to his inventory drop list, make it a real fight from the vanilla game. Tons of adjustments I want to make like that, along with all the awesome stuff modders have done like weather and lighting mods.

 

How easy is it to create my own overhaul then with other peoples mods? I assume that's not breaking any rules for private use? I mean, it's not the end of the world if it's a difficult task as I can still enjoy the mods as downloaded, but it would add the finishing touch to my modding experience if I could put a top hat and monocle on Sturges and gaze upon the glory of an LMG wielding Mama Murphy.

[greekrage]

Be specific...

Do you want to simply retexture or make new models/meshes ?

 

For simple retextures there are many tutorials on youtube...

 

For making new stuff from scratch it isnt only the CK you have to worry about .

You need to learn to use 3D modeling apps etc...That have a quite steep learning curve...

 

The good stuff we see uploaded is by people with years of experience...

 

Not out to discourage you but i cant honey coat the answer... ..Its simply hard to learn stuff..

 

Like i said...Youtube and tutorials...to at least get an idea of whats involved...

 

Creating overhauls that effect the game globally is also complicated and needs plenty of knowhow so you dont break the game..

I suggest you start small to learn the process ...

 

Also note : Dont touch other peoples stuff without written permission if you want to upload it ...

Edited November 20, 2022 by greekrage

[RaidersClamoring]

The stuff of having Gunners only use certain weapons isn't terribly difficult, you basically edit the Leveled Lists pertaining to that faction. But you are going to potentially edit something that other mods also edit, so pay attention to, and communicate how, load order will affect the outcome.

Best done in FO4Edit, afaik

https://www.reddit.com/r/FalloutMods/comments/i3z11e/fo4_how_do_i_edit_leveled_list_for_what_weapons/

[StormWolf01]

It's a learning curve. Not gonna lie.

Regardless of what tools that you use, and those tools depend on what kind of modding that you're wanting to do.

As RC mentioned, Fo4Edit, also known as XEdit is a great tool to start out with, as far as creating/editing .esp type files. While it's not as fully functional as the Creation Kit (CK) it is much easier to start out with. A good comparison would be that Xedit is to the CK as MS Paint is to Photoshop.

 

For private use, yeah. You can mod other people's mods. Just can't share them, unless the permissions on the mod page say that it's ok. Or that the author has to say that it's ok. In which case you would need to ask them for permission. But just for yourself, there's no way of stopping you :wink: I do it with weapon and armor mods all the time. Pretty much every time I download a new one.

 

The biggest part of learning to mod, is the terminology. What the terms mean, and what those meanings do. And in this particular game, a LOT of those terms are abbreviations. A lot of letters thrown together that only give you an idea of what they are if you already know what they are. :sad:

 

After that, learning the skills needed to make those changes, depends on what kind of project it is. Dealing with 3d models for example, is a completely different skillset, from just creating/editing settings. Making weapons also means that you need to learn how to adjust settings that, for example: Line up the 3d model's sights with the screen. So that the weapon doesn't shoot high/low, or off to the side when the sights are lined up.

 

As for just making edits. For me, the best way that I started out, was to take mod files and compare them to vanilla files in Xedit. I started with guns. I open the mod gun's files and compare tthem side to side vs a vanilla gun. What is different? In the game, I test it, and see how each of the two behave.

I make a copy of the .esp file for the mod gun. (So I can reinstall that, when I mess stuff up!) I start tinkering around with some of those settings, and then go into the game to see what happened.

 

Another thing about modding that often times gets overlooked, especially in our exuberance and/or frustration... is to keep notes. I did this at such and such time, and this did this or that. I changed this, and that's what happened. Keeping change logs can save you a lot of guessing. It can also help you to learn, because you have them to look back on. Kind of like keeping notes from the lesson in a classroom.

 

When I was modding car information for an old game called Midnight Club 2, I kept a LOT of notes. I also made an insanely huge amount of backup files. For that particular game, at that particular time... there was NO database of what did what. It was all experimentation. Everybody loved to add new cars to the game. Or replace the bodies on the cars with a different one. So there were tutes on how to do that. But nobody was sharing performance information.

[StormWolf01]

And rule number 1 of modding Bethesda games.

1) NEVER, EVER modify the vanilla files!

One of the reasons why I like Xedit so much, is that AFAIK, it will not allow you to do so.

It's set up so that you have to do it properly. By creating an override of the file you want to edit. It will not allow you to directly edit any of the files in the Fallout4.esm. You Have to create an override file, in a seperate .esp type file.

[Majorfatboy]

Well, as a layman that's finally getting around to really learning this stuff (instead of my usual hasty cowboy edits in the CK), also for the sake of a custom overhaul, I can say it's a good news/bad news type of thing.

 

Good news:

From a newbie's point of view, the tools a really good. The Creation Kit is fairly easy to use, has the ability to render assets so you can actually see what you're doing, and has a wealth of functions that streamline the work. Last year I went over most of the weapons as part of a quick'n'dirty weapons re-balance, and everything actually worked. I felt like a wizard. A lot of things do what they'd look like they'd do.

And then there's the third-party tools, like fo4edit, which is really great for a lot of other things, like comparing plugins. And still more, most of the other tools you'll use are free and not too hard to use; GIMP, Blender, Nifskope, notepad++, Champollion, Archive2, Etc.

In short, what you'll be working with isn't that hard.

 

Bad news:

Documentation for Creation Engine is all over the place. On the one hand, there's video series, guides, and so on that explain a lot of things in great detail... And then there's entire chunks of information that's flat-out missing. Bethesda's own website for the CK is almost un-navigable, most of it's information is for Skyrim, and even that is mostly just settings listings that have no real documentation worth reading. Googling for FO4 info will mostly return anything but FO4 results, instead dumping decade-old posts about Oblivion, New vegas, Skyrim, Etc.

And examining other people's mods isn't always useful, as a lot of mods out there were, and I mean no disrespect here, made by guys who also were laymen, and may have made some questionable decisions in their work. And I should know, we can smell our own.

Oh, there's also a lot of legacy functions that FO4 doesn't use at all, which really muddies the waters.

 

And then there's how the CK/CE handles Beth's scripting language, Papyrus, which has me questioning the mental health of the guys in Bethesda.

 

One thing I was going to say, that the guy above already said: TAKE. NOTES. Note everything you do. I have two binders and a text file set up; One binder is my "school" binder, it's where I take notes from a video series I'm watching. The other binder is my general notes. The text file is currently what I'm operating out of, it has everything I'm currently working on. Tip: In notepad, hitting F5 will place a timestamp down on whatever line you're on, use this.

 

So the work itself is very involved, but not strictly hard. But figuring out how in the hell to actually do certain things, that's the rough part.

Just move slowly and work in small pieces. I'm building my damage/XP/game rules changes as one plugin. When that's done, I'll move on to most of the weapons in another plugin. Then Armor, then spawnlists, then economy, Etc. Little pieces.

 

Loud music and booze doesn't hurt, either.

[pepperman35]

For a good orientation series I would highly recommend kinggath's Bethesda Mod School. I would also suggest starting small and working your way up.

[CrEaToXx]

It isn't hard. It just takes a freaking long time to learn. Start small, do some lazy balance tweaks, then maybe start scripting by reviewing original code. Texturing isn't magic either. It's just even more of a time sink.

 

Making F4SE plugins is considerably hard due to how you have to set up the environment, and tracing code in the .exe.

 

If you happen to have access to Adobe flash tools, you can jump.in doing UI work. But that's advanced modding, and of course, consumes more of the time you don't have to begin with.

[NeinGaming]

The road is infinitely long, and extends in infinite directions. But the good news is, you don't have to understand everything to successfully change or add on to parts of the game.

 

It's extremely bewildering at first, like a jungle where you see so much you kinda see nothing. But it does get better. Just one thing: Spending an afternoon or days finding some bug and then slapping your forehead because it was such a dumb mistake you made isn't a sign this isn't "for you" -- that happens to everybody. It takes a while before you have ideas and know exactly how you'll do them, and that they'll work, but you have to be stick through that initial phase of feeling like you're way, way out of your depths, and wanting to throw the towel.

Apart from that it's hard to give advice, people are different, but for me personally, I don't get too hung up on what I want to do and how it should be exactly, when I don't even yet fully know the material and tools and my own skills with them. I have an idea, and try to do it, but by the time I find out why that's not possible or would be too complicated for me at this point, I learned a bunch of things that *are* possible, and then I see what I can make with those. Rinse, repeat.

 

Good luck, ask questions, enjoy.

[actionhorror]

Thanks for the replies so far. Still not dived in yet, is there a clear guide on doing the basic clothing changes on an npc. Say I wanted to download one of the chinese stealth suit mods, and put it on Struges? That kind of thing.

 

Also, how much of Fallout 4 and Skyrim are hard coded and can't be changed in either the CK or xedit? Really want to change things like pacification chance and cooldown, crit build rate and crit damage, but wouldnt know where to begin looking to change those values.

Edited November 26, 2022 by actionhorror