What exactly do body and armor mods do?

[TomsawyerAM]

I apologize for being totally new to Fallout 3 (just got it) and modding it. I've searched the forums for an answer and looked at mod descriptions, but they haven't answered this one question.

 

What exactly do body and armor mods do? Do they just mod the look of YOUR character or do they mod the look of all the NPC's too? Do you drop the mod in and bammo, all folks in the game now look different or do you drop the mod in and then have to do a lot of leg work to alter NPC's before you even play?

 

I guess what I'm looking for is a sexier body and armor mod that just drops in and all NPC's are now different. Less legwork......instant results. Thanks!

[Kiralyn2000]

It depends on what the mod is designed to do.

 

An Armor Mod that replaces all of the Talon Combat Armor with a new model..... it'll be changed on everyone who has that item. An Armor Mod that adds a new "Talon Combat Armor Mk X" that you can find in a box somewhere - won't change anyone else's armor.

 

Unless a Body Mod includes some fancy coding, it'll replace every NPC of that type in the game. BUT....

 

 

The way that Bethsoft games handle armor and bodies complicates that. Every suit of Armor or Clothing includes the body it was designed for. When you put on an Armor, it replaces the unclothed body that was previously showing. (i.e, it doesn't layer the armor over the body, it replaces it).

 

This means that if you, for example, decide to use a very curvy E-cup/large hips female body mod but you don't also install armor that's been built to those proportions, you'll only see that body when you take your armor off.

 

Or, if you have armor mods made for several different body sizes, your character's proportions will change, depending on which armor you're wearing.

 

You can also run into some texture issues, if you use armors from several different body mods that don't have compatible skin textures. (For example, in Oblivion - all the Exnem and HGEC body mods use the same style of textures, so the armors are all compatible. But a BAB or FF armor might not be.)

 

 

Hope this helps, and wasn't too confusing. :)

 

 

 

Edit: the most common body mod for FO3 at the moment seems to be the Type3/TypeV body.

 

And the Lings Finer Things and Lings Pretty Things clothing mods will add lots of Type 3 clothing (Finer Things) and stick some of it on the NPCs in the wasteland (Pretty Things)

 

I'm not sure if there's another "basic armor" replacer for Type3/TypeV besides this one.

[Thespyhunter]

"Body Mods" are unfortunately at a point where a non-nude female one is non-existant. To me the only use is to provide more detail to feet etc.

[Ghogiel]

"Body Mods" are unfortunately at a point where a non-nude female one is non-existant. To me the only use is to provide more detail to feet etc.

:rolleyes:

 

1: that is not true. http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9073

2: you can actually just add undies yourself anyway. It would take all of 1min to overwrite the body mesh with any clothing variation you had choosen...