I didn't see your comment as an attack on me. You did say to ignore people who were suggesting the name might be problematic, but I don't think there is anything wrong with you saying that, I just happen to disagree. I was being a bit sarcastic in my response--hopefully I didn't come off as being defensive too, though.

It lists "348" downloads, on the main page, meaning, I think(?), 348 for all incarnations of the mod, including before the name change ... if you look at the different versions, the one with the new name has a total of 17 downloads listed ... but maybe that figure is incorrect.

EDIT: I love the new color of the sky, by the way. I thought I wouldn't like the switch away from green, but the ominous gray color you've got going looks awesome ...

Just started a new game with It's Bubbly! ... Getting out of the Vault actually felt exciting again, since I died a few times until I learned to be more cautious. I'm at Megaton and can't wait to keep going tomorrow ...

One question: how vital is the weapons module? I'm one of the posters who reported possible conflicts between it and the ironsights mod ... I killed a raider and took a gun off him made out of a baseball bat--trying to use it with ironsights, it nearly fills the screen. I'm pretty sure Bubbly added the baseball bat gun, but I don't know if the problem itself is a vanilla one (i.e. any such jerry-rigged weapon won't work with ironsights, whether added by Bubbly or not). Anyway, I've decided to disable the weapons module for now ... will that throw off the rest of the mod at all?

Will I need the add-ons to run this?

And should I run through the vanilla game properly before I play a mod? I only played on 'normal' until I got to level 20, explored each area until it was on my pipboy, finished the main storyline which ended the vanilla game, now I'm playing it all over again on Very Hard.

21 downloads in 3 days is at least as much uptake as any single previous version, so I'm not too worried.

jamesrh, glad you're having fun with it. Things will work fine without the weapon module. You'll just be without its changes, which are the new weapons, as well as the changes to leveled item lists that increase the frequency of melee enemies, reduce the frequency of high-end guns, and add DLC weapons to the wasteland. I'm not sure why you'd have problems with the iron sights, since everything I've added uses a vanilla graphic (usually the railway rifle, dart gun, or rockit launcher). A solution to your problem may be to just not use those weapons yourself, since they are designed to be weaker than standard equipment like the 10mm or hunting rifle.

SevenExxes, the main bubbly-base.esp and bubbly-healing have no DLC dependencies. There is an additional bubbly esp for each DLC that obviously requires that plugin. Bubbly-weapons requires The Pitt, Broken Steel, and Point Lookout. The weather module requires Anchorage (for a cloud texture). Healing-DLCs requires all the DLCs and serves only to let all the DLC foods and drinks satisfy hunger and thirst. You can activate Bubbly anytime in a new or old game, just not in the 3 minutes before or after hitting the character review menu when exiting vault 101. The later you activate it though, the more skill points, ammo, and stimpacks you'll have compared to the target amount the mod was balanced for.

what difficulty setting do you recommend for this mod?

i hadnt realized difficulty settings changed the amount of damage you dished out and received.

Thanks for the reply Rhoark. I'll give it a whirl once I pick up the add-ons to get the full benefits.

I only play on normal, so its what Bubbly is designed around, but if you want it harder, there's nothing stopping you.

Two more questions for you, Rhoark, both on compatability:

Would using Arwen_Reduced_XP, which slows down leveling (see below) work well with It's Bubbly?

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7674

And the same question for Everybody Bleeds, which makes it so that enemies--and the player--can bleed to death from gunshot wounds, greatly enhancing realism, IMO.

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3013

I think Everybody Bleeds might actually change weapon damage stats, but hopefully I could load it before It's Bubbly! so those won't overwrite It's Bubbly!'s changes in this respect ...

Which files do I actually use?
If I have all the DLCs, do I use all of the "Bubbly-INSERT DLC NAME HERE.esp" files, or just the "Bubbly-DLC.esp"?
If I have the DLCs, do I use "Bubbly-Healing.esp" or "Bubbly-Healing-DLC.esp" or both?

I'd have to examine them both in fo3edit to really be sure, but based on what they do and how I'd expect someone to use the GECK to achieve them, reduced XP should have no problems, and Everybody Bleeds would have meaningful conflicts. Loading it second would probably work, though any change to weapons would be overridden, and any mod-added weapons from Bubbly or elsewhere would probably not have the bleeding mechanic. Blood loss is an element of It's Bubbly, though implemented very differently. It requires you to use a blood pack (or visit a doctor) if you have been at very low HP for too long.



There is no bubbly-dlc.esp
If you have a minibalance-dlc.esp, its from a very old version and shouldn't be used.
Otherwise use any of the named DLC bubbly plugins if you have the associated DLC.
Weapons depends on The Pitt, Broken Steel, and Point Lookout.
Weather depends on Anchorage
Healing has no DLC dependencies.
Healing-DLC should be used if you are using bubbly-healing and all 5 DLCs. It basically just changes 1-2 food items per DLC to be in line with the healing module.

So far I really like what the mod has added -- Makeshift weapons and all (I wish there were more though). However, I have some questions. Is the food/water just supposed to fill the hunger/thirst quota, etc.? So far I haven't been seeing any of the consequences of not eating or drinking. I see that in FO3Edit that one of the modules overrules the other -- giving it only the ability to stop your hunger/thirst and not heal you immediately. So is food/water supposed to heal you or not?

And what should the load order for the modules be in order to prevent conflicts?

Otherwise, it's a great mod I hope to see more improvements soon.

With just bubbly-base.esp food and drink are changed so they take time to heal rather than doing it instantly. The healing module, which adds the hunger mechanic, causes food and drink to only satisfy hunger and thirst and not heal at all. The consequence of not eating or drinking is that you don't heal as much when resting (up to 60% when hungry or 30% when thirsty.)

Load order should be:
(Mr. Lab Technician, if you use it)
(Explosive Entry, if you use it)
bubbly-base.esp
bubbly-[DLC].esp (for each DLC)
bubbly-weapons.esp
bubbly-healing.esp
bubbly-healing-dlcs.esp
(All your other mods)

One of the things I wish was different about the game is the high number of skill points you start out with and accumulate--makes it seem too easy. Before switching over to It's Bubbly! I was using Arwen's Realism Tweaks, which has a skills module that changed this, as described below:


"8.) Skills Module (This module is best used with a new game; or with a VERY low level character): My newest module adds much needed balance to skill points . . . you will now begin the game with half as many skill points, and your skill points should increase roughly half as fast as in the default game. Reduces amount of Derived Skill Points, changes Skill Books, changes 95% of the default Perks, and adds a few of my own unique perks, Overhauled Bobbleheads and reduced initial SPECIAL points. [My Fallout 3 Journal fully covers all the changes that this module makes, including all the Perk changes (which may be helpful in planning out a new character's stats). Link: http://amito.freehostia.com/Fallout/Arwens_Skills_Module.htm ]"

I know this module will conflict with part of It's Bubbly! since you also tweaked skills, but could I get away with using it anyway? In other words, load it after It's Bubbly? Or would that conflict too much with changes you've made, thus throwing off the balance of the game?

If it would not work for me to use Arwen's skills module with It's Bubbly! any chance you'd consider implementing a similar change with your mod? Start out with so many skill points makes the first part of the game seem way too easy, IMO.

It's Bubbly! reduces skill points from the vanilla 10 + INT (11-21) to 7 + INT/2 (7-12). Before the effects of perks and books (but including derived skills and bobbleheads) this would allow a 10 int character to have 3 tagged skills and 3 other skills to 100 by level 30. Skill per INT is an integer setting, so to get the INT/2 required a hidden perk to halve it. Using another mod that alters skill points will still have the perk, so it will be halved again from what the other mod sets, even if the other mod loads later.
Comprehension requires reading 20 skill books before taking the perk, eliminating the cheese tactic of stockpiling books until the perk is available. The Educated perk requires the comprehension perk, increasing the investment required to reach it.
Perk modifications, replacing skill-increasing perks with more unique effects, will be the central thrust of 2.2
I don't perceive starting SPECIALs, derived skills, skill books, or bobbleheads to be problematic from a balance standpoint so have no plans to alter them.

I saw The Road when it came out, loved it. Really wished Fallout would look like that.

Unfortunately, I'm sure this isn't at all compatible with FOOK2. If a compatibility patch is ever released between the two, I will use the sh.t out of this ;D

This looks like a great mod! I've been looking for something to add a bit more of a survivalism feel to FO3. I started a new game with it last night, and I just wanted to mention one thing that I noticed--I blew up a car by the Super Duper Mart, and my Rad indicator said I was taking 5 rad/s, but I found that I got rad sickness in a few seconds. By contrast, I was reading 9 rad/s beside the bomb in Megaton, but it took considerably longer to get rad sickness there.

I'm not complaining about the higher rads from the cars (that seems quite reasonable), I just wanted to point out the apparantly incorrect on-screen message for you to look into.

Anyway, I'm enjoying it so far. I'm not sure about the weather module--I really like the glaring sun of the vanilla wasteland, but I'll give it a few day/night cycles to get a feel for it before I decide whether to turn it off.

Oh, can I also ask where (in what file/section) you changed the timescale? In my own experience, I've added it to a script to make it part of a mod, but I couldn't find it when I had a look at your files in the GECK. I know I can just change it with the console (which I've done), but I worry that it might revert back to 3x depending on how you implemented the change. (I prefer it somewhere around 10x to 15x.)

Thanks for a fun mod!!

I can't really do anything about radiation display - its .exe based as far as I can tell. Radiation from explosions has a decay rate, so you may have gotten a big burst of rads initially then only read the meter when it had fallen off to 5.

The weather is purely a matter of taste - that's why it is its own esp.

Timescale is a global variable. It probably wouldn't revert if changed through a script or console.

Thanks for the reply. I'm a bit of a noob with the GECK, but last time I tried, it didn't seem to let me change global variables, so I did it in a script (since I already had some new scripts in the mod I was editing). It sounds like you have found an easier way to do it.

I suspected that the rad display thing was unalterable from one of your comments on the nexus regarding some other display problem (food sanitizer?). not a big deal.

One other question--is this mod compatible with the Unofficial FO3 Patch? I've been interested in trying that due to the many fixes it implements, but since it edits so much stuff, I worry that it will make it difficult to use any other mods along with it. Or, can that be overcome with one of the mod-loading utilities? (I'm currently just using the launcher to select mods, since I don't use many.)

Thnaks again...

One last (hopefully) compatibility question from me ... Will It's Bubbly! work with Simple Needs--a mod that adds various penalties to not eating/drinking/sleeping?

Detailed description here:

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3769

Using the UOP with It's Bubbly should not generate any new problems, but any records the patch fixed may be overwritten with more vanilla-like values if Bubbly edited the same record. UOP will be one of the mods reviewed in 2.1

Simple Needs or any hunger or injury mod such as Basic Needs, Real Needs, Real Injuries, or Triage will not work with bubbly-healing. You can use other mods of this type using bubbly-base without bubbly-healing. Bubbly-healing will eventually subsume all the functions you'd get from Simple Needs or Basic Needs. Real Needs, Real Injuries, and Triage go to a higher level of micromanagement (and arguable realism) that doesn't match where I want to go with Bubbly, but bubbly-healing remains a separate module precisely because people might prefer those options.

I'm expecting to release 2.0c on Thursday. There haven't been many bona fide problem reports in this round so the changes are fairly minor. If anyone has been sitting on a problem, be sure to share it. What is in 2.0c relates mainly to fixing bugs with the flare gun and aesthetically fine-tuning the weather module.

2.1 will be the mod interoperability patch. At present I plan to review the following mods for compatibility. (Presence of a mod on the list does not imply it is presently incompatible, or that it will definitely be made compatible in 2.1, just that I'll be investigating what if anything it would take to make them 100% compatible.)
Unofficial FO3 Patch
Mart's Mutant Mod
Fallout Food
Energy Visuals Enhanced
Unique Weapons with Unique Textures

Mods that require FOSE will be outside the scope of 2.1, notably WMK and RH_IronSights. I would like to address these eventually.
Please make other suggestions here, particularly those you've found to definitively conflict in some way with It's Bubbly!

Cool...hope all goes well with it.

Just finished the mission where the store owner in Megaton sends you to investigate a town ridden with landmines. Got in a few skirmishes along the way (including one where three raiders armed with melee weapons all charged me at once) and I ended up limping all the way back into town with exactly ONE hit point left, my vision blurring ... Awesome experience.

On another note:--Does RH Ironsights really require the use of FOSE? Because I'm using RH Ironsights--and I'm not using FOSE.

Thanks, wholly unexpected admin. It's a superminor revision, so wish me luck with 2.1



I'm going by http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6938 where it's titled "RH_IronSights - FOSE" and lists FOSE as a program used to create it, even though it says nothing about FOSE in the install procedure.

It works with or without FOSE.