Fallout 4 Modding 2019 to 2025 difference questions

[Dubbyk]

Thanks to everyone for sharing their info, it does not sound nearly as bad as I thought it would be, I guess I'll be getting back into it then. If anyone has anymore new "must have" or important framework mods I should look into when I start rebuilding my mod list please feel free to share them. 

 

I'm hoping a lot of the old workshop item mods have maybe consolidated into fewer bigger mods, was always a chore installing all the workshop mods and then having to test all your menus after each one to make some one didn't bork a keyword and make one of your menus go missing.

I'll also have to do some research into that .BA2 limit

[geala]

As said it depends on the mods you want to use. You should also ask yourself what the NG gifts you as PC player. As someone without a widescreen but just a 3840 x 2160 I don't see any gain from the NG. What are the advantages of having next-gen installed? Maybe I will think about switching if a next-gen exclusive mod comes out so ingenious and great that I absolutely want to use it?

A story about old mods and frameworks: One mod I like is for example Clothing of the Commonwealth by Crimsonrider, a 2017 mod. It was Armorsmitth Extended and AWKCR dependend. Constantly trying to optimise my FO4 of course I read also about the problems with these frameworks. Once I started a new concoction of mods without them. Then began a phase of sudden not reproducible CTDs out of the blue, after years of a stable FO4. I tried for months to find the reasons, using all available methods which seemed reasonable to me, but I did not connect the problems to some of the mods which promise to work without AE and AWKCR. It was unthinkable seemingly, quite dumb indeed. I stopped playing FO4 and looked elsewhere. Then a year later when I again felt the urge to play FO4, I suddenly remembered AE and AWKCR, the reasons for ctds I had removed for a more stable ensemble of mods. I installed the old frameworks and the old original mods for them again, and the ctds were gone. Since then I have about one or two ctds in a year (with about 200 mods, some heavy scripts and all 4K textures) instead of every hour like in my "optimised" FO4. 

[363rdChemicalCompany]

15 hours ago, Dubbyk said:

Thanks to everyone for sharing their info, it does not sound nearly as bad as I thought it would be, I guess I'll be getting back into it then. If anyone has anymore new "must have" or important framework mods I should look into when I start rebuilding my mod list please feel free to share them. 

 

I'm hoping a lot of the old workshop item mods have maybe consolidated into fewer bigger mods, was always a chore installing all the workshop mods and then having to test all your menus after each one to make some one didn't bork a keyword and make one of your menus go missing.

I'll also have to do some research into that .BA2 limit

A large workshop mod that includes a  LOT and that is still working fine is homemaker extended.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1478

[363rdChemicalCompany]

9 hours ago, geala said:

As said it depends on the mods you want to use. You should also ask yourself what the NG gifts you as PC player. As someone without a widescreen but just a 3840 x 2160 I don't see any gain from the NG. What are the advantages of having next-gen installed? Maybe I will think about switching if a next-gen exclusive mod comes out so ingenious and great that I absolutely want to use it?

A story about old mods and frameworks: One mod I like is for example Clothing of the Commonwealth by Crimsonrider, a 2017 mod. It was Armorsmitth Extended and AWKCR dependend. Constantly trying to optimise my FO4 of course I read also about the problems with these frameworks. Once I started a new concoction of mods without them. Then began a phase of sudden not reproducible CTDs out of the blue, after years of a stable FO4. I tried for months to find the reasons, using all available methods which seemed reasonable to me, but I did not connect the problems to some of the mods which promise to work without AE and AWKCR. It was unthinkable seemingly, quite dumb indeed. I stopped playing FO4 and looked elsewhere. Then a year later when I again felt the urge to play FO4, I suddenly remembered AE and AWKCR, the reasons for ctds I had removed for a more stable ensemble of mods. I installed the old frameworks and the old original mods for them again, and the ctds were gone. Since then I have about one or two ctds in a year (with about 200 mods, some heavy scripts and all 4K textures) instead of every hour like in my "optimised" FO4. 

This is good info.

I also use AE and AWKCR, extensivly and was beginning to doubt myself because so many other users seemed to disdain them. 

[fraquar]

My biggest reason why I wouldn't use AWKCR is I like to keep my frameworks atomic.   i.e. 1 framework, 1 job.

That is pretty much impossible with AWKCR - so you end up trying to fix the very things AWKCR clobbers in another framework you'd rather use (lets say an Armor framework) - just so you can leverage the Weapons portion of AWKCR.

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I can do that by removing AWKCR dependencies from mods - and letting the atomic frameworks manage things (and only the thing they are designed to manage).

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Added:   

If I were to create my own mods and only use them in house - I'd create an AWKCR. 

If I were going to distribute mods - I wouldn't distribute AWKCR.   

Why?   It touches too much and in ways that creates incompatibilities with other mods that choose not to leverage it when they whole point of a framework it to create consistency.   Only way to create consistency with a framework like that is to re-engineer mods to leverage it that weren't designed to - or limit yourself to only using mods created to leverage it.

Edited January 14 by fraquar

[geala]

Is that so? I use about 200 mods and I know that's not that much compared to modlists of other players. Maybe I'm just lucky with the composition of my mods. But I usually can ignore AE and AWKCR, it sits there in the background.

If a mod has a version without AE/AWKCR dependency, I normally use that, mostly simply because I want them all bundled in the Chem workbench and not spread over "dozens" of special AE stations. A lot of my edits overwrite AE/AWKCR edits, without problems. So they are a big framework, but not a demanding one. I use them because some of my favorite mods need them. And it's just nice that they remove the dumb/unneccessary slot occupations of many vanilla outfits. You also can have ballistic fibre for any garment (not that important for me because my armor has already big numbers, f.e. combat armor chest piece is 800 armor, and that's not peak armor). Mainly AE/AWKCR spare me a lot of editing I had to do without them anyway.

[fraquar]

I'm not suggesting people don't use it - just why I don't use it - with an explanation why.

When I think of a framework type mod it's something that doesn't get wholesale overwritten - for obvious reasons.    It's a framework - it's what the mods you use should be leveraging - not trying to avoid.   Once it starts getting overwritten with edits, there isn't much point of calling it a framework anymore.   At that point it becomes little more than just a dependency.

Edited January 15 by fraquar

[Dubbyk]

So been doing a bunch more reading, seems like a lot of people are saying merging plugins is an "old method" and not really used anymore. I understand that a lot of the smaller plugins people used to merge like small weapon mods and game tweaks can be .ESLs but I have a lot of simple but large location mods, IE Add a new island or some buildings to a blank part of the map. They are simple mods but have TONS of records due to buildings / tress ect so they can't be turned into .ESLs but since they are "simple" in the fact they have no scripts or moving parts they used to be prime targets for merging.

 

Is there some reason I can't still merge mods like this? Or are the people saying "merging is bag" just making general statements to people who used to try and merge everything?

[samuraitech]

I only merge mods not likely to break and are not light plugins.  Clothing/Armor mods are perfect for this.  I have all of Vtaw's mods with one plugin.  Also DonEb.

You can unzip files in separate mods and move them all into one Mod folder.  Rezip and reinstall in game.  Decreases the amount of mods you have listed in your game.  MO2 Left side, not referring to plugins.

Only do this for mods that make sense, like maybe mods with patches or a lot of extra features added for the main mod.  I kept all of the Vtaw mods separate, but made the plugins hidden in each mod.  Feature of MO2.  Kept just the merged plugin active.

If a merge does not work, then simply disable merged plugin.  Re-enable all the individual mod plugins.

Also, don't merge mods that are new and may be updated soon.  

Test any merged mod out at once in the game.  Load save game before the time you enabled the merged mod if it messes up for you.

 

You can also convert plugins into light ones.  I think you can have up to 4000+ of those.  Not sure if I want my plugin count that high even if it works.

There are multiple methods you can work with.  Merging is one.  Converting to ESL or light plugins is another.

If you don't use more than 50 or so plugins in your game, I probably would not bother with merging.

 

Other performance efficiency items:

Look at mods that use loose textures.  Are they available in ba2 format.  Loose files take longer to load and slow down your game.

Look at performance guides.  They will tell you how to tweak things like your .ini settings for better performance.

Use performance mods like High FPS Physics Fix. 

 

If you use ENB play around with different ones to balance looks with performance.

An ENB may make your game look awesome, but if it only lets you run at 5 FPS I would not use it.

There are mods with batch files to automatically remove old ENB presets safely from your game folder.  You can then load a new one to see how it performs.

I was using one that brought my game to its knees.  Could barely walk in downtown Boston.

Now I run at steady 60 FPS, capped.  I can go over 100 FPS but have the game capped at 60.

I am using Luxor's 2k texture replacements with Luxor's ENB and my performance is great.

I tend to look for ENB's that support NAC X and True Storms.  Those two together make for some scary environments.

 

Below is a mod with a collection of vanilla saves, with no mods installed.

Main Quests Done Only Saves

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/28584?tab=files

I like to use this to load at various places in the game.  Same for mods because they are after the vault.

When you are building up your mod lists and testing mods you may need to restart with a fresh save.

Once in the game you can load your character preset back in via Looksmenu. 

You don't necessarily need Mods like Start Me Up or Alternate Start .  If your goal is to just not start in the vault, then use a vanilla save.

 

 

 

[Dubbyk]

So after more digging around for the new set up another old question came back up, Cleaning mods in FO4edit? Back in 2019 there was big debate on if this was or was not a good idea, I know with older mods made before FO4edit had the auto cleaning feature they often had to be cleaned as the mod makers at the time didn't have a quick tool to do it them self's so unless they updated their mod it was on you to do it. I know some things cleaning finds such as ITM records can be left by design and cleaning the mod would break things if done, hence the debate.

How do you guys handle cleaning mods? Does it depend on how old the mod is? IE: A mod from 2016 maybe be a good idea to clean it as maybe they didn't know to do this, but a mod from 2020+ assume they had access to FO4edit and they left the records there by design?

 

Do you just trust certain mod makers to know what they are doing, so if it's well known you left it alone ect?