Fallout 4 Modding Discussion.

[akiraplays902]

Finally finished my load order on two test characters; adding mods while using the character. (UI change elements, Fall Souls, FallUI the works along with graphics mods, weapon mods, armor mods, and more to make a nice Tacticool load order. even added mods like Agony and immersive animations and weapon framework for the ASval and a bunch of other things ik i’m failing to mention, let me know if you want it as a collection) ANYWAYS… I had my first CTD issue on test character 2 (deleting and downloading mods mid run) but when i made another character the problem seems to have gone away. It IS normal for that to happen when you’re testing characters/world to make sure it works right? just making sure because i really love this load order and i’m about 80% sure it’ll work, but i’m just triple checking. 

[Soothsayerman]

I've had that happen and I'm not sure what the cause is but, I usually open up X-edit and look around and if I don't see anything major I just  load and unload the mod and restart vortex.  Vortex sometimes wants everything restarted to sort things out it seems I have no idea but it works.

[Mohatreras]

 It's totally normal to encounter a CTD (Crash to Desktop) when adding or removing mods mid-playthrough, especially during character/world testing.

[nondious]

I haven't played Fallout 4 in about a week, and I logged on to see what seems to be a cell reset (not sure if that's the correct term) over the entire map. Scrapped houses had returned in Sanctuary, so I walked to Red Rocket, where the whole building had returned.

This wouldn't be that big of a deal if I could actually get rid of them again. Problem is, I can't. They are not scrappable, and some don't even have an ID for me to 'disable' with commands.

 

[363rdChemicalCompany]

On 11/20/2024 at 3:13 PM, akiraplays902 said:

Finally finished my load order on two test characters; adding mods while using the character. (UI change elements, Fall Souls, FallUI the works along with graphics mods, weapon mods, armor mods, and more to make a nice Tacticool load order. even added mods like Agony and immersive animations and weapon framework for the ASval and a bunch of other things ik i’m failing to mention, let me know if you want it as a collection) ANYWAYS… I had my first CTD issue on test character 2 (deleting and downloading mods mid run) but when i made another character the problem seems to have gone away. It IS normal for that to happen when you’re testing characters/world to make sure it works right? just making sure because i really love this load order and i’m about 80% sure it’ll work, but i’m just triple checking. 

Generally it is considered Best Practices to not add and remove mods mid game as this will often leave artifacts in your game folders, those can and will interfere with the game causing either CTDs and/or landscape elements flickering in and out of existence.

Its often best to spend time to decide on your mods list and then just play the game.

 

However....., I in the past have often not followed this advice and approx 70% of the time it has not been an issue.

A reliable workaround I recently use is this: If you make an addtional profile and just label it "test", to try out different features weapons, location mods, etc. And then you can decide what you like and then restart a fresh playthrough with a more carefully curated modlist.

However if you keep ripping mods in and out willy nilly during a playthrough, especialy stuff that is scripted and/or affects the landscape you will likely ruin your savegame. And this ruiniation could be embedded many saves back before it becomes obvious. For this reaosn its often not so easy to ID which mod caused the issue if you have a lot of them.

Exceptions to this are added items like armors and guns. Those are mostly not as critical on removal. Also it is generally perfectly safe to add something into a playthrough, just not to remove it.

A trick I have used in the past (I am on Vortex) is when I see a new large mod I like, start a new profile, clone the mods list into that profile, add that mod, then copy/paste my savgagme files over inot the new profile and then play from that profile.

This way you still have an unmolested savegame archive to use in the other profile and simply can go back if you wish.

A less rigorous option is to just add your mod, and if you decide you dont like it, disable it and then just go back to the savegame point immeditaly preceding its addition. This works best for short + quick checks of simple mod content and single mod addtions. But otherwise I would recommend the approach with making an addtional profile in your mod manager.

PS: Sorry about the typos

[fraquar]

Did you figure out what caused the CTD?    Without knowing that it's pretty hard to do any further testing.

Confirmation bias is real in the realm of modding.    What you think solves the "problem" only masks it until another mod causes the same problem.

-----

Took me a week of testing to understand the cause of a CTD just by walking into Concord.    

Had NOTHING to do with Concord - but it's inhabitants (who weren't even in sight when I'd CTD).

Without knowing that, I'd have no clue what to look out for in the future, no idea if a fix was already published or even what mod was the actual "culprit".