Which mods should I install before my first play through? Or should I play vanilla?

[zanity]

Texture mods (essential). A good weather mod (most would think this essential too- my 'vanilla' game had some of its best moments when the weather mod coincided storms with dramatic moments in gameplay).

 

Look at iNPC and the radio station mods as well. iNPC is hosted OFF Nexus I think, but adds a ton of new Vanilla friendly content to the game.

 

Do NOT touch gameplay mods until you are far enough into the vanilla game to have an informed opinion.

 

If you are using sub-standard GPU hardware, there are a ton of tweaks needed to get the geame to play well. At release, Beth attempted to hide the very primitive engine used by Fallout 4 by sythetically boosting things like VRAM requirement (with purposely upsampled non-optimised textures). Out of the box, my (then) 1GB 6870 ran the game horribly (drops to less than 1fps in the city). Tweaked and I got high settings and playable framerates in the worst map areas. You see Beth used the old marketing trick = "it must be a 'great' engine for it needs the latest hardware to run well".

 

In reality the engine was a POS doing too many graphics algorithms )like shadows and occlusion and LOD) on the CPU (and then only using one core).

 

Off hand I cannot recall the tweaks, but they are refered to in many old threads on the Nexus.

 

Do NOT use things like 'clean settlements' because they break the COMBINE OBJECT method the engine uses to actually render at acceptable framerates. Anything that changes the onject stuff on the map has a real chance of breaking the engine.

 

When you have tired of the vanilla experience, then you may choose to sacrifice performance with a new visual design.

 

As a GAME, vanilla Fallout 4 is far weaker than Fallout 3/NV, but no mod makes the GAMEPLAY better- it proved just too hard to fix FO4. However, a first run thru FO4 still remains a lot of fun, until the poverty of game design finally becomes too apparent (and that point will take a lot of hours to reach).

 

The body and weapon mods that are so well done are just adding lipstick to a pig. You'll know where you stand on these types of mods once you've played a good way into the base game.

 

The settlement mods are best left till you've gained an opinion about the settlement system. In reality this settlement system was an AFTERTHOUGHT, added by Beth after the PS3 version of FO4 was abandoned. It s a rip-off of earlier settlement mods on the Nexus for earlier games, and is poorly conceived. Some gamers try to 'save' their FO4 experience by focusing on settlements- hence the many mods. But most gamers (the 95%) do their best to ignore the settlements. Settlements have no gameplay or narrative purpose (they were added too late in the original game dev cycle for that). Worse NPC interaction with settlements is trivial and unconvincing at best- immersion breaking.

 

On a first playthru I'd ignore settlement mods, and focus on getting to the place when you can use the Nukaworld and Far Harbor DLC (both excellent narrative and location additions).

[skyrim76]

Just to add, I forgot to say that.

 

IMPORTANT.

 

Some of mods will ruin some quests, like for an example that my mod ruined 1 quest in game, so read descriptions and Bugs section always.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/14517?tab=bugs

[Moksha8088]

Look at iNPC and the radio station mods as well. iNPC is hosted OFF Nexus I think, but adds a ton of new Vanilla friendly content to the game.

Tales from the Commonwealth, Atomic Radio, and Settlers of the Commonwealth can all be found here on the Nexus.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/8704/?

[sopmac45]

@ OP ...

 

If you never played this game ( not even in PS4 or XBOX ), then definitely play it vanilla first so you know how it is and determine your play style or what is it that you would like to modify in the game via mods. The definition of your play style is what will tell you exactly how you would like to mod your game.

Once that is done, read, read, read and read mod descriptions and mod posts, watch videos to see how mods works and go for quality not for quantity.

 

You were already advised by others what mods you should install in your load order. Everybody have his/her own opinion but ultimately, what should matter to you is your own. I could also give you my advise but I do prefer to advise you to read a lot before installing a mod. Be prepare to restart this game several times before you find the list of mods you want to play with. You will try several, dozens of mods before defining what you want and once a mod is installed, most of the time if you delete that mod and even though you go back to your previous saved game, your game will be screwed and eventually your game will CTD.

 

So, I have started this game several times since I started playing in PC more than 2 years ago. Right now, I know much more than before and I know exactly what mods I need in my load order and how to manage them and even how to make some custom mods for my own use. It does takes time; you won't be able to have a perfect game. You will CTD for several reasons and the more mods you install, the more difficult will be for you to find out the root of the problem. Be patient, persistent and do yourself a big favor : read, read and read mod description and mod posts. In the mod posts you will find important information that other users have found while playing with this mod and it will give you the idea if that particular mod is reliable or not.

 

Another piece of advise, we have thousands of mods from hundreds of modders but all of the mod authors are good and not all the mods are good as well. I have installed mods from "reliable" mod authors that are not performing in the way I expected so they are not in my load order, even though, the mod author is a reliable programmer. On the other side, I have found mods from 2016 ( old mods ) that have come to fix what new mods are not able to do. You have to try and find out, install the mod and see the mod behavior for yourself before deciding if you keep it or not. Nobody can tell you that in advance.

 

Also, you will CTD, no matter how many mods you have or how reliable they are. For example, I use War of the Commonwealth ( WOTC ) in my load order. This mod is essential for me. I simply cannot play without it. Period. It has been advised by the mod author that if you use this mod, you will CTD. I do not care and I have had some CTD with this mod but still it is a mod that I love and I cannot play without it. By the way, the mod author is working on his new mod that will replace this one and will be much better than WOTC and when the time comes, guess what, I would have to start a new game from scratch because both mods will not be compatible.

 

As yourself, I asked the same questions more than 2 years ago and I found out that even though good advises were given to me back then, I realized that I was the only one to define exactly what I wanted in my game. The way I play my game is different from another thousand players and theirs is different than mine. You have to define yours and go from there. Just to give you an idea, in Skyrim there is a mod called : Lanterns of Skyrim .... I do not use that mod at all even though it is a reliable mod from a good mod author. Why ? I have my own idea how to play my game and I do not need this mod in my load order.

 

Also, there are several things that you can get via console command that mods will give you. For example, a Carryweight mod exists, however, by just typing a console command, you can carry as many pounds as you like. You can have millions of caps by typing a console command as well instead having a mod that allow you to have more caps. Mods and console commands are there for you to use them as you please and both of them are there to cheat your game the way you want it.

 

In my case, I do not install mods that I will get the same effect I can get via console commands. Period. One less mod in my load order and less stress for my rig. I try to keep it simple. Just my 2 cents to you.

 

Happy gaming. :cool: