I Was wondering if i should turn on the DLC's even though i am just playing through the main game. Mainly i mean will it add things i would want to it or would it be a bad idea seeing as how i have yet to beat the base game?
I Am ~lvl16 no Negative Karma character right now and i haven't gone to GNR looking for pops yet. (been exploring and doing other quests first) Just slaughtered the slaver town actually.
I Have been playing with all the DLC turned off under Data Files (except Fallout3.esm of course), but i am starting to wonder if i am missing out on some pre-end game bonuses that i could be having fun with first.
Help is appreciated.

Broken Steel raises your level cap to 30 and adds tougher enemies such as Feral Ghoul Reavers and Albino Radscorpions.
I think your character's level is high enough to start encountering these once you've activated Broken Steel, so beware...

There's no issue as far as I can see. The only thing, besides BS, is that you would be able to purchase Punga Fruit at general stores some places, and pick up a couple of radio signals and map markers. If you were on 360, I'd advise against loading PL before playing the Pitt, but you ain't, so I ain't.

Oh no, really?? I just went and installed all 5 DLC at once from my GOTY disc and already played PL. Am I screwed?

Yes you are! MUWAHAHAHahaha... OK so i have no idea and i don't even have a 360... XD

So back on topic now, should i turn on just BS until i complete the original storyline?

I assume I will simply encounter some lag issues. PL was a bit laggy sometimes while I played it.

I'm still working through the DLC, since it's all new to me (ha ha). As far as I know, the quests of BS are activated after you finish the plain ol' main quest. The other DLC doesn't affect anything that happens in the rest of the game (with the exception of the added monsters, etc.).

This. . . .Albino Radscorpions [shudders].

I Know! Why did they have to add more Radscorpions? They make my skin crawl... Better than Spiders though. Ugg

I don't have the GOTY, so I don't know if this was fixed in the GOTY. If you have PL loaded, and are in the middle of the steel ingot hunt, there are about 12 ingots that you cannot access, because you fall through an invisible hole in the floor. There is no way around this hole. Trust me. So after consultation with Beth Tech Support, they told me to delete the PL DLC, and the hole would be covered up. And thus, it was. Immediately after I covered that section of the steelyard, and got all the ingots, I reloaded PL.

Note: this PL issue only affects that one hole in the floor, so if you don't care about ingots, don't bother. If you do care, I'd delete then reload. This is why I've always done the Pitt before PL, but as I said, I don't know if this was fixed in the GOTY.

Oh geez, that's severe. I'll let you know what happens when I get to it, for sure. Otherwise I will keep this in mind as a solution.

As you're on PC, you could install all the DLC and then install the http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3808, which covers all the DLC as well as the GECK. I'm pretty sure the issue Big Daddy mentions would be fixed by it.
Also, I use a mod which delays you getting the DLC messages all at once. I'll post later if I can remember what it was called... (At work at the mo)

Is there any way to download that Unofficial patch without being logged in over there? It says I have to be logged in to download any file over 2mb.

Also, will that Unofficial patch screw up anything from the official 1.7 patch(any incompatibilities between the two)? Will there be anything "missing" from the game because of this(content removed due to incompatibility).

The reason I am asking is that I just finished Vanilla Fallout 3 today(first play-through! Yay! :celebration: ) and am going to install the GOTY DLC tomorrow. If the game experience will be better installing the Unofficial patch over my current 1.7 patch, then I will do so.

I am playing on the PC if that makes any difference at all.

1) No, you must be logged in - joining will take about 3 mins.
2) The UOP requires the official 1.7 patch
3) The UOP fixes faults left after the official patch and nothing else. It should be perfectly safe to use, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Quazzy and Quarn are highly experienced modders whose work is exemplarary.
4) I know you're on the PC, you can't install mods on the Xbox or PS3

I knew that only the PC could take Mods, but I wasn't sure if an Unofficial patch would be considered a Mod or not.

I'll sign up at Nexus tomorrow, as I'm heading off to bed shortly.

Thanks for the help.

I Think i will just turn on BS and play the game normally until i finish the main campaign. That way i get the lvl 30 level cap and such goodies.
Thanks for the advice everyone.

Yeah its still considered an actual mod, as it's unofficial


Think thats wisest, as BS is more of a game expansion than the additional quests of the other DLC

Fooey! That means I'll have to get that Fallout utility. FOOM or something like that. I was hoping that it would have just installed like a regular patch.

Fallout Mod Manager - FOMM - No, theres an exe version, which I used, which automatically recognises which of the DLC you have installed and installs only the components it needs. It also seems to add a fix for the GECK too if its installed (but I haven't fully read the readme,so don't quote me on that)

Thanks again for the help. I am about to stick the GOTY disc in my drive to install them, and will attempt the Unofficial patch after that. I'll let you know how it went(it might not be pretty! LOL!).

As far as I know, I don't have the GECK installed. Is this on the Fallout 3 disc somewhere or does one have to download it? I don't have much skill with that sort of thing(the most "Modding" I have ever done was to create levels for Ultimate Wizard and some scenarios for Adventure Construction Kit, both C64 games).

You'll need to download the GECK from this site - here's the link.

http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/Main_Page

I haven't really played around with it much at all, and there is a pretty steep learning curve associated with it. However, there are tons of tutorials out there, here and on YouTube, and if you have questions about how to use it the experienced modders who post on the forum mod threads are very helpful and knowledgeable.

ETA - if you're really serious about making and/or using mods, you will find FOMM to be a must have. It's not really that hard to use, and it just runs rings around the default launcher. The only thing I use the default launcher for is when I want to tweak my video settings.

Thank you for the link, but to be honest I think I'll probably just play Fallout 3 Mods rather than try and create any. There look to be a lot of good ones and it is hard to decide which ones to pick!

My CD Rom was fruitlessly spinning for over an hour(I heard this was an issue) so rather than do a safe-boot I just copied the files from the CD to my HD. It worked! I now have the DLC installed as well as the Unofficial Patch(that was really easy to install as well). I then chose all the files on the startup of the game. I also clicked on the 'Load Loose Files' option, but I don't know what effect that will have(if any).

I'm just doing a quick check to see how to make Traders essential and then it's off to the game!

Thanks again for the help.

To set the traders as essential, you need to open the console in the game by hitting the key to the left of your "1" key on the main keyboard - on US keyboards this has the "~" and "`" symbols.

Once you have done that, type the following commands, hitting the Enter key after each line.

setessential 63BF8 1
setessential 63BF7 1
setessential 63bfa 1
setessential 63bf9 1
setessential 69c49 1
setessential 69c47 1
setessential 69c45 1
setessential 69c43 1
setessential 27de7 1
setessential 27deb 1
setessential 27ded 1
setessential 27de5 1

Exit the console with the same key you used to enter it, and you're done.

Note that you only need to enter the first four lines to make the traders themselves essential, but each trader has his own pack brahmin and guard, and the remaining eight lines set them to essential as well. You can still trade with the merchants even if their guards and brahmin die, but IMO it just makes the game better if you preserve them as well.

I know this is the general forum, but Welcome To Mod Using! :wave:

If you decide to start using more mods as you play, you will have to start considering their load order. Luckily this is easy with http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516 - Better Oblivion Sorting Software also supports FO3. (You could install this and run it to make sure your unofficial patches are installed in the correct order, but as it's the only mods you're using it won't matter). Just make sure you activate these mods you've installed, for this you can use FOMM
If you do decide to use more mods, the very best advice I can give is to take it slow, add 1-2 at a time.

There are then some other utilities like Wyre Flash and creating Merged Patches which are needed if you start adding even more mods

It's a pleasure to see such a nice and helpful group of people around here.

Yes, I was going to recommend Wrye Flash as the single utility needed for managing mods (and Wrye Bash for Oblivion, and Wrye Mash for Morrowind). The only caveat is that Wrye Flash is a conversion of Wrye Bash and, as such, it has a great deal of material left over from Oblivion (including the ReadMe of course). Still, the ability to tweak many game settings through a single utility that also manages save games, mods, etc makes it my choice, but I am very familiar with these tools, too.

One thing about BOSS - it won't automatically cover all mods, so you may have to do a bit of judgment for mods that it doesn't recognize.