Overwhelmed by the number of mods, came back to play in April 2024...

[Scarrwith2Rs]

I don't even know where to start. I used to play FO4 a ton back about 4-5 years ago, the mods were great and kept the game alive.

After watching the TV Show, the itch came back and I wanted another round in the wasteland but where to even start.

Is there a list of current/updates mods or collections or a page or some sort for someone starting from scratch and a fresh Steam install to get the best experience?

[Karna5]

Why not start small? Start with cosmetic changes like:

1. Body:

• CBBE is easiest because you just install textures over the vanilla skeleton
• Fusion Girl is more advanced and requires the ZEX Skeleton and a complete replacement of all outfits in the game to the new skeleton, but I like it and use it. If you use Fusion Girl, you'll also need OCBPC to go with it for natural physics.
• CBBE has an offshoot called True Wasteland Body which can be used with its own skeleton to try to emulate what FG does. it's somewhere between CBBE and FG i difficulty to install and set up, but I have never tried it as I use FG
   

2. Weathers, Lighting, maybe even terrain overhauls and the like:

I use Darker Nights (darkest setting) with True Storms and Karna's Nuclear Colors (of course), but I don't use ENBs or a lot of the other things many people use. You can simply explore those mods and install and try what you like. They're fairly safe to try as most of them don't use persistent scripts. Just read the descriptions before you try any.

3. Animations:

There are many cool animations out there. I like "Don't Stop" walk animations and the Kicks and Punches combat animations. But there are many cool animations you can try. These are also generally safe to experiment with to see if you like them, and you can uninstall them if you don't like them.

4. Big quest mods:

There are a TON of amazing mods (Nuka Ride, Commonwealth Slavers, Problems of Survivor and many, many more). But the bigger the mod, the more dependences and conflicts you might have. So save these for LAST i any experimentation you undertake. Don't try big quest mods until you're pretty comfortable with what you've installed.

P.S. I forgot to mention Face textures as well. There are many very cool ones (I use Natural 2k Face Textures by Fuse00), but the main thing to keep in mind with face textures is whatever resolution you pick, all makeup, scar, face overlay and related mods like Looks Menu Compendium MUST be of the same resolution. Thus if you pick a 2k face texture, anything else which touches the face must be 2k as well. Just read the description in mods you try. They'll give you instructions and advice for each mod.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Here are some of my favorite and (nearly) entirely bug free mods:

Any mod from Neeher, is good, his masterpiece is the Select Assault Rifle. a Fallouty take on the US CAR15 from Vietnam, with mods available as you gain Gun Nut levels until finally at gun nut level 4 you can mod it into a LMG capable of being useful in the endgame. Can be crafted once discovered to equip your settlers.

Can even be modded to take the common 38SPC round ( at reduced damage)

Select Assault Rifle at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Neehers Xanders Aid, a DLC sized Quest mod and remarkably free of Bugs. Just incredible, made the hair on my neck stand up in one scene especially, despite being in the best power armor of the game (This also features the best weapons loot in the game of all mods, but you ahve to find it, and no I am not talking about Neehers Select submachine gun, which you can also find there)

Xander's Aid - DLC at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

The minigun has been nerfred in the vanilla game, this unnerfs it (ammo still an issue though unless u go cheat console)

Vanilla Minigun Damage Buff - Lite at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Subway runner adds a lot of content (this is my current location in the game  )

Subway Runner Revised at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Transfer Settlement Blueprints, allows you to "save" you settlement builds and reload them in another playthrough or download one of a couple hundred available pre made settlements here on nexus:

Transfer Settlements - Shareable Settlement Blueprints at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Alternatively I also really like these deep clean and remodel series, gives you among other things, a great premade white tower house form oberland station to build in your settlements too. Plus it rebuild settlements to alleviate your need for transfer settlment blueprints ( I often use them together, let CDC redo the settlement, add my own stuff and then save that as a TFB

Commonwealth Deep Clean and Remodel Collection at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

And then there is the "Living" series from zed140 here is one example:. Builds a complete settlement plus adds settlers ( i usually sitll add more but here you go)

Living Somerville Place at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Mod control Menu, Many mods will have settlings and sliders , best controlled via MCM.

Mod Configuration Menu at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

 

There are also a lot of sex mods on Loverslab often focused on the fate of  female characters but some also can be played sensibly as a male, if you like building harems pr talking advantage of your settler girls.

But the sex mods take a lot of work to get right (AAF and its dependencies, and that IS overwhelming to most)

A mild version is Commonwealth Captives, in the MCM set male captives to zero (there is a slider in the mod Control Menu and who wants to look at naked dudes, not me) and whenever you raid, supermutants and raiders, they have some beauties tied up for you to rescue and have join your settlement

Commonwealth Captives - Downloads - Fallout 4 Adult & Sex Mods - LoversLab

more to follow...

 

[363rdChemicalCompany]

To really put your stamp on the universe and especially if u have beaten the game before cheat console is a great tool.

Just use it sparingly, its very easy to inadvertently make the game so easy it takes out the fun. But I use it mostly for settlement building or if on an alternate start I want to start myself out with a specific gun, or a armor that one otherwise would never use (for example raider power armor no one ever uses since by the time u find it unoccupied you already have much better power armor:)

Cheat Terminal at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Also for fun you can inject a lot of erotic posters and magazines into the wasteland.

This is just one of many examples:

Erotic Art at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

 

more to follow....

[363rdChemicalCompany]

CEP mod teams series of small to medum side quests is just incredibly awesome:

CSEP Presents Loaded Bases - Quest Mod at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

CSEP Presents The Experiment - NEW Quest Mod at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

[363rdChemicalCompany]

There are a lot of mods to add to Diamond City.

I currently use these:

DC plus adds content in the City. Not quite as much Content as Diamond City Expansion but I find the competing DCE extremly difficult to get just right in load order and just letting DCE touch yoru savegame if its not "just so", in load order will result in badly flickering textures in DC and even in a block near it.

This here however, is stable and also add much needed female NPCs to restore some balance to the demographics as well as more locations in Diamond City.

Diamond City Plus at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

 

Also I felt there were always too few security for what DC is. So I added this. remarkably bug free:

Diamond City More Security at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

 

more to follow...

[363rdChemicalCompany]

If you restart playthroughs you may beocme bored by the bunker sequence and the slow prewar sequnces:

This speeds it up AND gives you the ability to start as other than the vault dweller:

Start Me Up Redux - An Update for Alternate Start and Dialogue Overhaul. at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

[363rdChemicalCompany]

A very easy way to give your power armors a quick bug free buff in damage Résistance and health, without downloading multiple mods to buff it heavy (which I confess I do)

Power Armor - US Army Paint at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Also those pesky fusion cores:

Gift yourself a small supply here w/o the cheat console

Starter kit - ESL at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

A new location to explore:

Vault 494 - A Vault-Tec Story at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Speaking about locations, new land mods are the cats meow:

Zorkaz is the rock star of those, and they are bug free:

The Wilderness - Now with four anomalies at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

and also another Favoriten form him:

The Farmlands - Beta at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

 

In the farmland's worldspace BTW I published a humble transfer settlement blueprint if you are ever interested:

Franklin Barn TSB in The Farmlands WorldSpace at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

 

And finally one of the best standalone mods to add content, all over the map, Many small to medium and a couple large (glowing sea city! full of supermutants and a subway system to explore!!) and other locations all over. NO conflicts that I have found

Atomic world, bug free and amazing, will never play the game w/o it:

Atomic World at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

These are just some highlights to turbocharge your Fallout experience, 

 

 

 

 

[Karna5]

What's so cool and uplifting to me is that I've never tried and often never heard of most of the mods 363rd mentioned. It makes me marvel with delight at how much diversity and amazing potential modded Fallout 4 can have : )Which I think brings us back to Scarrwith2rs' sense of being overwhelmed.

363rd's list is awesome for you, but don't jump in and try everything at once. That is what gets you overwhelmed.

Look at the ideas, and just try one at a time, reading the descriptions of each mod and making sure you have all dependencies installed with them

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Couple more I thought of.

NAC-X is a really good weather mod but also include a number of selectable ENBs ( shaders for your world, like zombie apocalypse, hitccock movie ambienace, and a few others)

Also can turn off rad storms in all areas except glowing Sea , edit your pipboy green glow diffuse light into a proper flashlight beam and many other useful tweaks of the visual experience.

But its a bit RAM hungry, so only use on a strong rig, I'd say 32GB RAM and up based on my expereince. .

NAC X - NATURAL AND ATMOSPHERIC COMMONWEALTH 10 - Legacy Edition at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Power armor Night Vision  is another goodie

P.A.N.V. - Power Armor Night Vision at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)