Hey y'all, so I know that some of you might be groaning and thinking, "great, another person that can't take a few minutes to search the forums". But I've followed FO3 modding for awhile, so I am familiar with most of the "main" mods out there. I've played FO3 on 360 and finally am getting a gaming PC.

What I'm looking for is opinions on, based on your experience, what works best together to achieve a certain sort of game. Here's what I'm looking for in my modded game:

1) A bleak, unforgiving wasteland - "Fellout" is not for me. Unlike many, I WANT the gameworld to be an ugly, destroyed place - full of brutal violence and hopelessness. This also means no "cleaned-up" NPCs or textures. Everyone and everything should be covered in dirt, rust and grime. There should be a polluted haze in the air, making all areas seem sickly and inhospitable. Opinions on best weather, shader, texture, and/or miscellanious mods to achieve this would be greatly appreciated.

2) A challenging, desperate gameplay experience - one big problem I had with vanilla was the over-abundance of guns - where's all that ammo coming from? I'd like to constantly be scrounging for ammo, and actually have a use for my melee. HOWEVER!!! I don't want "eat and sleep" mods - just not my style. In that way I differ from many immersionists. I am familiar with the main gameplay overhauls - looking for opinions on what works best for people.

3) Some added realism tweaks - more people around the wasteland, more realistic settlements (there's no way a town with no walls would survive their first raider attack). Maybe less raiders in general (unrealistic). Again, I know there are many mods for that sort of thing, just wanted people's input on their own favorites.


I will absolutely be dikeing around with my own mod list, but anyone who cares to throw their two cents in the ring could potentially save me a ton of time, seeing as I've never actually "gotten my hands dirty" with mods. Thanks!

For two and three your best bet would be http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2761 but it's not everyone's cup of tea

as for number one I can't help you out much because I love Fellout and project beauty

Yeah, for two I would definitely go with FWE. For three, I can't really think of anything specifically that makes towns more realistic, but there's got to be something. As for that desolate feel, http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6550 is by far my favorite. The "I Dream of Visari" preset should fit nicely, but if not, there's plenty of other choices. If you're looking for a more arid desert look, http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17006 is a new addition that isn't too bad.

Thanks! I've considered Project Beauty, as it seems to make faces look "better", not more "attractive" - but i would be curious as to other's thoughts. I would want people's faces to look ragged and not at all "attractive" - daily living in the wasteland would ruin anyone's appearance.


Cool, that's another vote for FWE. As for the Wasteland Moods, I'd never seen it before - that "I Dream of Visari" preset looks EXCELLENT. Thanks so much for sending that my way.

Anyone have any thought on the "Wasteland Travellers" mod, or any other mods that claim to add more NPCs? I've noticed mods like that tend to add lore-unfriendly characters that break immersion (anime hair, etc.)

Wasteland Travelers is actually pretty cool, and more realistic in a way. Because honestly, the likelyhood of the player character being one of the few non-Brotherhood people scavenging the wasteland is pretty low. It doesn't add ridiculous anime hair or anything either, it uses all vanilla meshes from what I remember.

I suggest http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1228871-relz-arwens-realism-tweaks-thread-no13/ for requests 2 and 3 instead. I've used both FWE and ART and I find that ART is far more brutal especially with the optional hardcoe, Encumbrance and Med-Tec modules.

I second Wasteland Travellers and you might be interested in http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9192 as well.

Yeah Wasteland Travellers is another good mod you may have to tweak it a little at the start (easy with the built in options) incase it feels a bit crowded like I do with default settings

I second Project Beauty. Bethesda can't make a decent face to save their life using FaceGen (or any other software for that matter, just look at Morrowind). Anyway, few of the NPCs are beautiful, but almost all look more realistic and better. I especially like what the author(s) did with Moira: now she looks like a young, optimistic woman and not someone's mother who had bad plastic surgery.

Hello,

Regarding #3, it seems that http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13328 adds some realism to settlements.

I would recommend NMC textures mixed with Road Warrior's skies. Definitely get Project Reality when it is released for Fallout 3.

Nice find - thanks! Sounds like just what I'm looking for.


I've heard good things about ART - i'll check it out. the BoS Patrols was definately on the planned modlist.

Does anyone have any opinions on MMM? My fear was that it would add "too much" - turning the game into a shoot-fest and taking away the "isolated" feeling, and adding creatures that didn't really fit. But there's a lot of things about it I want, like the creature behavior modifiers.

Thanks for all the input!

Personally, I'm not a big fan of MMM. Like you said, it makes the game seem crowded. Cool in some parts, but overall I think it detracts from that "alone in the Wastes" situation.

Well MMM does have plenty of options for tweaking the amount of extra spawns per location as well as enabling or disabling some new creature types. You can set to not have any extra spawns so you can achieve the isolated feeling you're looking for. You'll also still get the diverse creatures from MMM so you won't see the same MoleRat, RadScorpion or Mirelurk everywhere.

I have FWE but since your looking for a more burtal wasteland Go with ART
I like Project beauty i picked it up a couple days ago and it makes people look way more realistic and it fixes the problem where theres a black head and a white body
Wasteland Travellers is a good mod too

Also if you want a really good quest mod, you should try ElijahHoucks Mod, Alton, IL

Everyones pretty much said mine you could always look at Arwens mod list on her website to see what mods she uses with her Tweaks (thats what i follow with a few of my own little additions thrown in DC Patrols etc) she likes the survialist rpg too (should probably be able to tell that from her tweaks ) just use everything but her med tec module which adds food sleep bullet wounds etc and your good
MMM lets you customize spawns like has been said so can set more of less spawns i like to disable floaters and winamigos cause i killed them off in Fallout2 I DONT WANT THEM BACK I HATE THEM SO MUCH!!!!!!
Wasteland Travellers, Impervious Power Armour so power armors actually what its suppose to be (shrugs off puny little 10mm pistol rounds) RH Ironsights is a must for realism ammo weight and displayed ammo weight so ammo actually has well WEIGHT! I like to disable fast travel and use Traveling Caravans like stilt striders off morrowind (pay for fast travel instead of just clicking a button which if you arwen you have less caps to spend etc) also love realistic death physics cause being shot with a 10mm shouldnt make you fly to the moon damnit!

Consider this abandoned/as-is and largely superseded by FWE/Arwen/RI, but it may still have some ideas that could interest you: http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=7695