I've been playing on the PC and using mods for a couple of weeks now, and I think I'm starting to get fairly comfortable with the whole process of applying mods to the game, as well as starting to understand a little about what's going on "under the hood" with mods. I do have a couple of questions, though, about using some of the mods that change the player character and/or NPCs.

I'm currently using Dimon's Type 3 body as a replacer for the females in my game, and enabled the option to use tribal tattoos on the Raider females. Digging around in my game directory I've noticed that the Raider females have their own textures folder, while all other females have a single textures folder. I'm assuming this means that the Raiders are their own separate race - is that correct?

I'd like to add a few tattoos to my character - nothing elaborate, just a couple that would look nice in screenshots when I decide to glam her up a bit. What I've seen for available mods seem to be texture replacers for the entire upper or lower body, and if I'm understanding this correctly, that means if I use them, every female NPC in the game besides the Raiders will have the same tattoos as my character. Am I still on the rails here?

I've been doing a lot of reading about this, and it seems that if I want to make this kind of body change and have it only apply to my character, I have the following options -

1. Create an entire new race for my character alone, which I gather from my reading is difficult to do and can lead to all sorts of other issues within the game. Probably beyond my capabilities at this point.
2. Start learning to use the GECK, and then individually edit every female NPC in the game to use a different texture that has no tattoos. Sounds like a ton of work.
3. Grit my teeth every time I loot some non-Raider woman's body and see the very same tat my character has.

Is that it, or do I have any other options?

Thanks!

It's typically done by duplicating a race and using that for your character. It's easy enough to point the textures for that race to a different place than the race it was copied from, without changing anything else about the new race (and not altering the original race at all).

Thanks - I might try tinkering with that tonight. You have to create a new .esp file to point the textures to the new race, right?

Pretty sure you would, as the new race has to be saved somewhere. You need to do that for a custom face, and it makes sense anyway that you would need an .esp for it.

I've been toying with the idea of making a custom race as well, for my male character- I don't want every guy in the world to be sporting yakuza sleeve tats, just my guy. Making the race itself is easy and I'm very comfortable with using the GECK, but I'm wondering about my custom race being able to "pass" during the main quest and DLC, ie Tranquility Lane and Broken Steel.

Is there a mod comparable in function to Oblivion's Custom Race Fix by Kynetarse? The only mod I've found that addresses this is http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6240. If anyone reading this happens to know if this will be enough, I'd appreciate a post confirming that. Or is such a mod unnecessary?

Yeah - I think just to be safe I'll make a fresh backup of my FO3 directory before I start screwing around with that, in case I completely blow it up.

Shameless thread bump - I'd like to see an answer to greenwarden's question myself.

That's the only one I know of, and it works for me. From what I remember the only place the game checks your race is during that movie sequence at the end, just before the Broken Steel questline starts. I think the mod mentions when the camera zooms in on the picture of you and Dad. That mod is also helpful for non-custom races if your game just ends instead of continuing on into Broken Steel. I always use it as I seem to have a problem around there. Some say it's because you may use "showracemenu" to change your race while playing. Maybe. I've not changed my characters race mid-way through so have no idea.
As soon as the Broken Steel questline begins that mod can be deactivated, as it's not needed anymore after that.

Thanks, Mystyk. If it works for you then I'm certain it's a safe choice.