Is there like an optimal installation order for mods?

[bocckob]

Skip first paragraph to reach the point...

 

I bought Fallout 3 for the 360 when it launched and played it to death, but now that I have a computer capable of running it (at medium settings), I bought it (plus Broken Steel/Point Lookout) last week so I could try out all the awesome mods I see. As of last night, I had over a hundred of them taking up just over six gigs of space on my hard drive. They were eventually mostly working, but I guess something or other tipped it over the limit last night when somehow previously working mods started glitching out and either crashing or losing textures after I installed a stand-alone mod. Specifically, the Metal Gear Solid cardboard box turned into a red exclamation point when I equipped it and I think booze bottles or something also turned red. I don't know what they were because the cursor couldn't find them. But the last mod I installed was to add new stand-alone weapons, so I don't know how they correlated at all. Re-installing the box, disabling the new weapons, etc. didn't help anything and I had the feeling all the cobbled together mess my Fallout folder had become wasn't helping either, so I wiped everything and am now going to download and install one mod at a time to ensure there's a smaller chance of things breaking.

 

So basically, some of the mods I had were additions, some were replacements for textures, meshes, AI stuff, sounds, etc.. I have FOMM, FOSE, FOIP, FOEdit, and that ArchiveInvalidation thing so everything is friendlier. But is there a general rule of thumb or something for deciding in which order I install new mods so important things aren't replaced or something? For example if I downloaded a big weapons pack that added new and modified existing weapons, plus I got EVE, which also modifies some things (I remember the laser pistol in particular being replaced three or four times). Which should get installed first? Does it matter at all unless the mod explicitly says something?

[Fatalmasterpiece]

There is no set order but you have to keep in mind that your overriding the existing files. I stress that because some of your missing meshes (the red with exclamations) may be due to your not installing the files in the correct location or choosing not to completely override whatever preexisting files are there. With this in mind, there is an order you want to fallow, such as say I wanted to use Project Beauty and a body replacer. I would want to install the body replacer after the larger mod like PB since the body mod will be overwriting some of the larger mods files.

 

Also, are you creating a Merged Patch for all your mods? That's very important. Some mods just won't work well together since they are editing the same things, so you can't have your cake and eat it too all the time. Or, some mods may work together but it could be such a trouble to make that happen that it may not be worth the attempt.

 

Sometimes it's a good idea to start with a fresh, clean install of FO3 and put all of your mods into different folders, to plan out your installation, generally at this point you would want to install Utilities (like FOMM and FOSE) first, then UI mods (Darnui etc.), then gameplay mods (like FWE etc) then smaller mods like textures, etc.

 

So if your load order should generally be, after ESMs, small mods followed by bigger mods (so that the larger mods can take precedence and work properly), I would say when installing it's the opposite, with larger mods coming first and smaller mods tweaking the files further later (as long as they aren't altering it where it won't work)

[bocckob]

Thanks for the tips. The fresh install and using fewer redundant mods, along with installing and loading them all in the right order seems to have worked. Although I still randomly crash sometimes, I think that's because of either my graphics card/lack of memory. :P

 

I've been doing merged patches with FO3Edit, but I keep seeing that GaryBash thing mentioned too. Does it help any to use both? I downloaded everything to use the GaryBash, but I'm having trouble finding instructions to use the thing itself...