Ten rules to get a mod setup with a lot of workshop & crafting mods to work

[HadToRegister]

Here's a tip to help you keep your sanity when trying to arrange your load order like the example that wax2k gave in the OP of the thread.

 

1. I opened up FO4Edit, and only checked Fallout4.esm, and let it load.

2. I then opened the "Ingestible" category and just picked something like "Bubblegum" and picked "Copy as override into...." (I'm not going to enable the esp, so it doesn't matter)

3. I picked "<new file> and when asked to name the esp, I named the first esp (without the quotes) "__________BUG FIXES" ((That's 10 of these _ ) you can do a lot more in order to see your sections better)

4. I repeated steps 2 and 3, while picking different items from the ingestible list, "Corn", "Tato" etc, and I named them as follows...

"__________SETTLEMENT BUILDING MODS"

"__________SETTLEMENT BUILDING MOD PATCHES"

"__________GAMEPLAY TWEAKS"

 

Etc etc, exactly like in his example where wax2k breaks up his load order into sections in his example.

 

In NMM, I dragged all of the new esps UP, so they were all right under the last ESM in my load order, then following wax2k's guide, I dragged the first bunch of BUG FIXES esps, (Individually and in groups, if they were arranged together) right under the new "__________BUG FIXES" esp, now I had the BUG FIXES section all done, and with a very nice and visible divider that also will give me quick reference to drag any other Bug Fix mods I find while I'm sorting my load order by hand, this also let's me know where the next section begins.

 

Now I did the same thing for the next section etc, this made it VERY EASY to see which Mods I had finished sorting, and where each section began and ended, and I ended up with a virtual copy of wax2k's example load order, including the section dividers.

 

Hope this helps someone keep their sanity while sorting 200+ mods by hand, while trying to stay organized.

[Megalamaniac]

I have a question about conflicts between mod plugins.

I've been using LOOT, Wrye Bash, and FO4Edit 3.2 to setup load order. I use LOOT first, then Wrye Bash. If I have any red checks I use FO4Edit to "sort masters" and back to Wrye Bash to build a bash patch. I then use FO4Edit to identify any errors with plugins loading.

To this point if I got any errors in FO4Edit I would just dump the mod.

I started getting some weird behaviors in-game and the occaisional CTD or freeze. I then started opening the plugins with FO4Edit and realized I have quite a few conflicts (red Line) between plugins like ArmorKeywords (AWKCR) and Armorsmith extended, I.E. under "Armor" the Keyword #0 entry in AWKCR is Keyword #5 in AE for a given item. If I change the keyword order in AE I can get the conflict resolved and the red line to go green.

The problem is there are a lot of items under Armor that are red due to this issue, like hundreds.

My question is should I take the time to get rid of ALL the red conflicts between plugins, or just concentrate on the ones giving errors when loading them into FO4Edit.

[Ethreon]

I have a question about conflicts between mod plugins.

 

I've been using LOOT, Wrye Bash, and FO4Edit 3.2 to setup load order. I use LOOT first, then Wrye Bash. If I have any red checks I use FO4Edit to "sort masters" and back to Wrye Bash to build a bash patch. I then use FO4Edit to identify any errors with plugins loading.

 

To this point if I got any errors in FO4Edit I would just dump the mod.

 

I started getting some weird behaviors in-game and the occaisional CTD or freeze. I then started opening the plugins with FO4Edit and realized I have quite a few conflicts (red Line) between plugins like ArmorKeywords (AWKCR) and Armorsmith extended, I.E. under "Armor" the Keyword #0 entry in AWKCR is Keyword #5 in AE for a given item. If I change the keyword order in AE I can get the conflict resolved and the red line to go green.

 

The problem is there are a lot of items under Armor that are red due to this issue, like hundreds.

 

My question is should I take the time to get rid of ALL the red conflicts between plugins, or just concentrate on the ones giving errors when loading them into FO4Edit.

No.

[wax2k]

Hi guys, long time no see :wink:

 

For the past days I tried to get into Fallout 4 again but in the end I had to accept that it just doesn't grab me anymore. I finally deleted my whole installation including all saves, mods and customizations.

 

So why do I post this here? Well, I know that the guide includes some deprecated information especially considering certain mods. On the other hand, I think it still has a lot of valuable general help to offer, so I am not sure, what to do with it.

 

I won't be updating it anymore due to lack of time, motivation and knowledge about current mods and problems with them, so the question is: Is the guide still helpful in its current state? Should I just keep it here? Should I get it unpinned or should I even delete it?

 

I'd love to hear your opinions on that and I also included a poll in the original post so you guys can vote on it. I will be looking at the responses and the poll over the next days and then base my decision on that. Hopefully there will be at least some feedback to help me with that :wink:

 

Thanks in advance!

 

wax

Edited September 7, 2017 by wax2k

[mac2636]

Still has value, especially for newer mod users. Yes, a lot of the settlement mods now use script injection and user don't need to be as ultra careful with install and load order, but your guide is still a good start for best practices.

[wax2k]

Alright... I had hoped for a little bit more feedback, but I guess there's at least a bit of interest still, so I'll just leave it here. If any moderator ever thinks this is too outdated or not useful anymore, feel free to unpin or delete it.

 

A big "Thank You!" to the Fallout 4 modding community, especially Gambit77, Ethreon, NovaCoru, Sarinia and mac2636 for great mods, helpful advice and just being awesome people.

 

Farewell and see y'all in another universe! :wink:

[thepeacemaker707]

Yes, this thread still has value! It's December 2017 and I'm just now encountering a possibly game-breaking issue and came across this thread... So far I have not gotten the game to work, but i HAVE learned a lot in reading this post. I know it was 3+ months ago when you asked, but still...

Edited December 24, 2017 by thepeacemaker707

[joshkes]

I know it's been 6 months since this post saw activity. I wish there was a better way to share this, but:

I've been modding through Fallout 3, New Vegas, Skyrim, a replay of Oblivion, and now Fallout 4. If you really want to have 100+ mods and have them all working, I have gathered a bit of advice that I would give to anyone having any problem.

#1 - Check that you have the latest patch for Fallout. Maybe you haven't checked in a month or so and some of the mods you just downloaded have already been updated to the latest FO version.
#2 - DL everything you can through NMM and create a specific folder in your Fallout install folder for tools.
#3 - DL the proper tools for casual modding. F4SE, LOOT, FO4Edit, Fallout 4 Config Tool, and the Fallrim Tool are all must-haves if you want to use a lot of mods but don't want to learn every detail of modding. Open NMM and click the folder icon at top that has the crossed tools on it. If you have not done it already, it should have a list of tools that say "Config LOOT", "Config FO4Edit", etc.. Click on each and tell NMM where you installed each of those tools. I use a folder in my FO4 folder called "tools". Sometimes a like F4SE need to go in the Fallout directory. Just point it where you put them.

#4 - Expect CTDs (Crash To Desktop). When you start adding all kinds of new things that weren't built into the game, problems WILL come up. Fallout's default way to handle that is to simply quit.
-- Now on to some useful stuff --
#5 - Every time you download a new mod, first, read the main page. Look for compatibility issues with mods you already have. This is the number 1 way to make sure your game works. After you've done that, go to the files tab and look through all the available downloads. Often a mod won't say on the front page that you need a patch to make it work with some other mod you have or it may have specific versions for your computer's memory or speed. At least glance through all the options.
#6 - Once you've installed a new mod, run LOOT. It will put your mods in the correct load order. There will be a small chance that the mod you have downloaded isn't in the LOOT MasterList yet. It's rare, but it happens. The advice I'm giving is for noob modders. Don't use that mod. Find a similar mod that does something similar or just wait until LOOT adds that mod. Doing otherwise may require you to do some more advanced mod modifications. I'm assuming you don't want to do that and just want to play your game ASAP.
#7 - Look through the LOOT list and find any mods that have warnings or errors. Start from the top and fix those. There are many videos on YouTube on how to do that, but, the basic rundown is this: Open FO4Edit from the NMM menu. Right click on your mod list and select "select none". Then find the specific mod that needs fixed (you don't need to select the main FO4 file and the DLC) and select that one only. Run FO4Edit. It will give you a list of all the mods the one you selected requires, plus the mod you selected at the bottom. Typically this is just the main FO4 file and DLC (it knows you need those) and the file you selected. Right click your mod. Select "apply filter for cleaning". Almost always your problems will be "ITM" or "Identical To Master" records. Right click your mod and select to delete those. Close FO4Edit.
#8 - Rinse and repeat. Go back to LOOT and find the next mod with warnings. Do #7 over for each item with an "Identical to Master" warning.

#9 - With all of your ITM errors cleaned and the mods you want installed, open FO4 through NMM using F4SE. Immediately create a new save and exit.
#10 - Open the Fallrim Tool from wherever you installed it. You will have to direct it to your saved game file, typically "C:\Users\{your_user_name}_\Documents\My Games\Fallout4\Saves". Note that you need to use your user name and it has an underscore after it. Sort your saves by when they were modified and pick the one you just made. In the FallRim tool, go to the "Clean" dropdown menu and do "Remove unattached elements" and "Remove undefined instances". Save your saved-game file (it will create a backup for you) and close the tool.
#11 - Run the Fallout 4 Config Tool from wherever you installed it. All this tool does is tweak your INI file which stores your settings for FO4. I wouldn't mess with much except maybe the HUD colors :wink:. The thing you need to do here is make sure that under the "Tweaks" Tab, you look at the bottom and make sure "Invalidate Archives" is selected. Save your INI and exit.
#12 - Open NMM. Use the little dropdown arrow to run your game from F4SE.

 

---- NOTES ----

 

# Unlucky 13 - Sometimes, in extreme situations of frustration, it helps to use NMM to uninstall all of your mods. Run LOOT first and keep it open before you do this. After you have everything uninstalled, start to add them back, one by one, in the order they are listed in LOOT. This ensures that when you add a mod and it wants to overwrite a previous mod, it's usually OK to do so. If you followed step #5, sometimes a mod will tell you specially not to overwrite. Take heed of that. If you are really at wits end, read each mods page as you reinstall it to make sure it's OK to overwrite other mods. There will, rarely, be occasions where you clicked "Yes to Mod" for the overwrites when you should not have. If all else fails, this will usually fix anything. If it doesn't, then you have most likely not followed all of the above steps completely. Some mods just don't work together. That's also a fact of life you may have to learn to live with.

Although the specific tools and mods change from game to game, this process has fixed 99% of problems I have run into while playing modded Bethesda games. If this process doesn't fix your problem, go through the steps again and pay close attention to the reading part. I've been guilty of skipping that many times. lol... :wink: If you still don't have a fix, Google. Sometimes with some very specific issues, you need very specific fixes. If you Google it and go through the latest comments on the Nexus Forum or Bug or Posts for each related mod, you can often find the answer there. Sometimes You'll find a Reddit post about it. That's usually not the case. As I said, this process has fixed 99% of the crashes in my game.

I'm only posting this now because I had a CTD that was frustrating me and after an hour of angry Googling, I said to myself, "Wait, what do I always do to fix this stuff?" Then I took my own advice and followed these steps. Now my game works fine. I figured before I go back to playing, I'd share what I do with everyone else in case someone else has spent angry hours Googling and ended up here. Good luck and happy modding..

Edited June 23, 2018 by joshkes

[Deleted49413338User]

What are working food planters and what is SSEX? the very first step of this and I already have no idea what is going on. lol

[MarkusTay]

Don't have Ssex in a working food planter and you're good. :wink:

 

A lot of that is outdated, but both are mods, so just don't download them, M'kay?

 

(SSEx = Settlement Supplies Expanded)