So I broke down and got the DLC since this is supposed to work, and I've got most things working, just one problem.

I uninstalled F3 entirely. Wiped it clean. I backed up my saves to another location beforehand, but deleted the INIs.
I installed anew. Patched to 1.0.0.1.5 or whatever it is.
I got the Fake Patch, the Unofficial Fallout 3 patch, installed them both and am running in this order via FOMM:

Fallout 3.esm> Fake Patch>Unofficial Fallout Patch> Anchorage.esm
NOTE: No matter what I do, Unofficial Fallout Patch always has a mod index of 3 in FOMM.

I was playing, wandered around, found this area that apparently is the Anchorage area, the Outcast Outpost. It was full of [!]s. Well, I knew what was wrong there. I took Quarn's advice and put the Anchorage ESMs in my INI. That fixed that!

But, and here is where things go svck, no matter what I do, I can't get the radio signal to start the thing going. I'd like to have that for, well, game immersiveness. And so I know everything is working good.

I tried the Live Disabler, it didn't help. I'm not in Live anyway, since it logs me out the moment I start playing because I refuse to patch to Eff-You-Consumer Patch 1.4.

Other than using the manual command to start the quest, how can I get the radio signal?

Thanks!

Not sure why it's not doing it on its own as that quest is start game enabled. I just tested and unchecked O:A, saved, rechecked O:A, then carried on and got the signal again shortly after entering the Wasteland w/o using the console. Make sure you're out in the Wasteland and not inside anywhere or in the downtown worldspaces and you should get the signal. Worst case scenario, with a pre-existing character, is you just might need to ~ResetQuest DLC02oa1 or ~StartQuest DLC02oa1 to get the signal.

I was in the nuka cola plant before I installed OA, then since I installed it all I have done was go through the plant and saunter up to the red racer factory to meet the hockey crew. Then I wandered nearby to the metro station that takes you to the outcast OA scene. Is that downtown ish or wastelandish? Should I go wander in bethesda or out by bigtown for a while?

I reinstaled the game from scratch, patched up to 1.0.0.15, backed up both fallout3.exe and fallout.esm, patched to 1.4.0.6, downloaded O:A, backed up the new fallout3.exe and fallout3.esm and restored their 1.0.0.15 versions from the previous backup. After that I've instaled UOFP and the Fake Patch and edited the Fallout3.ini to add the new .BSA.

Everything working flawlessly so far. When the new DLCs comes out I hope that only restoring the 1.4.0.6 is enough to download the new DLC form the Marketplace.

That should work, but I had fast traveled to Megaton to test. :shrug: Also, If you've stumbled upon the area already, the radio signal probably won't start. If O:A's loaded and your character hasn't done that quest, the signal should show. If not, to test O:A's presence, try the console command.
Here's hoping the Fake Patch will work on its own. You should be able to Get The Pitt w/o repatching/unpatching since you've already patched once to 1.4. That new game setting is in the Fake Patch plugin and the update to GFWL should remain intact. We'll see soon enough. I'm still hoping there'll be a 1.4.0.7 right before The Pitt.

Happy day of happy days of small, dancing cute kittens bringing me gin and tonics!

It effing worked! I had to disable GFWL by installing FOSE, but it flipping WORKED.

JustinOther, Quarn, et al, I salute you all.

Huzzah! :foodndrink: I just finished ranting about the unwelcome guest (GFWL) in Hardware/Software. Go figure that it was the stop you had to pull... I'll amend the install instructions to include that FOSE might be imperative to get O:A to work.

Dood, you were right, those floating trees at anchorage are gone after reloading game xD

Wasn't that weird? It only happened once, thankfully. I'd seen others write about floating trees in O:A in the support forums, but hadn't seen it myself, but there they were. Speed trees are so fast they can fly, I guess.

click my GFWL link in my sig.
Fanfrickentabulous work on this. Major http://webpages.charter.net/moondookie/kudos.jpg to you.

Awesome! And that's exactly what your http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=925417&hl=Poll look like and that was way back then. I wonder how a similar poll would go now.

So my testing result did have some contribution?
BTW, I've played through O:A and didn't encounter any achievement related problem. I hope The Pitt can be played with this configuration (if Bethesda still doesn't fix the VATS.... D:)

Your testing and feedback have helped others and I thank you for it. Here's hoping for a timely 1.4.0.7 patch right before the Pitt Comes out, but if it doesn't happen, I'm fairly certain The Pitt will work the same way O:A does and we'll still get our VATS perk bonuses while targeting trogs. ^_^ Also, I'll be sure to put out an Achievement Remover for The Pitt asap.

Thanks.
Well then perhaps another poll should be made...
I may do another one a couple weeks after The Pit is released.

I feel bad, because I keep forgetting the name of the person who created the picture with the Poll results.
Just too appropriately funny.

Btw, have you or NovaRain received any kind of feedback from the Devs on the work being done?

There are a few ongoing threads in Hardware/Software. They're "looking into it", and I have a feeling there will be a new patch soon, hopefully before The Pitt with the best of all the previous .exe's.

Here's my problem:

I install the game, fresh, clean install:

It's already at version 1.0.0.15 as soon as I finish installing. Cool, right?

Maybe not. If I backup that .exe, update to 1.1, install OA, then replace the .exe with 1.0.0.15, this is what happens when I try to use the new weapons and armor:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y14/andros80/ScreenShot93.jpg

Not fun. All I want is to be able to use the new weapons and armor with the old vats. Is that really so difficult to achieve? maybe so...

I had hope that there would have been a VATS fix in the "next patch" after it was broken in 1.1. You can see how well that faith paid off, huh? <_< I won't believe it until I see it. And I won't be getting any more DLC unless I see it.

Did you try this from the readme? Had the same problem & works fine now.

IMPORTANT - Manually adding archives to your Fallout3.ini:

They only implemented esm\esp loading of BSA's when THEY needed it (for the release of OA in v1.1), so what does that mean? it means if you are using the v1.0 exe you have to add Operation Anchorage's BSA's to the SArchiveList in fallout.ini.
SArchiveList=ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa, Fallout - Textures.bsa, Fallout - Meshes.bsa, Fallout - Voices.bsa, Fallout - Sound.bsa, Fallout - MenuVoices.bsa, Fallout - Misc.bsa, Anchorage - Main.bsa, Anchorage - Sounds.bsa

No, I didn't try that... Sounds interesting. I'll give it a shot and let you know how it works.

EDIT:
Yeah, that did the trick. Thanks man. I'm not sure if vats is exactly as it was before, but I cannot complain considering I can actually hit stuff in vats again and get those lovely 95%'s

I just wanna say thanks! This works perfectly after reinstalling and patching to 1.0.0.15.

VATS is back and feels GREAT. Great work!


For down the road, is there a way to set aside the Fallout3.exe in its 1.0.0.15 state so I can test newer patches without having to reinstall?

I mean, if future patches don't fix the VATS and other problems, is there a way to revert to my current version without reinstalling?

Uhhh... copy the EXE and drag it out of the FO3 folder.

: ) Thanks, I thought that would be the answer!

Question... One of my biggest irks with the original 1.0 was that pressing whatever you had mapped to the PipBoy would not close it, you had to press the default Tab key to do that. Is it possible through FOSE to script a means to do this (through a MenuMode block I'm guessing)?

I ask this because I'm torn between the hassle of this and having a fully functional VATS. It may seem inane, but the only thing that a player probably uses more prolifically than VATS is the PipBoy.

I just checked by remapping the PipBoy to they 'Y' key and it would open with 'Y' but not close unless I hit 'Tab'. I'd never noticed this as I've always just kept it mapped to the tab key. That is lame, but chances are FOSE can be used to work around it. I'll look into adding an FOSE fix to the Fake Patch plugin or maybe make a second plugin to remedy that. I'll have to learn a few new tricks to pull it off. Any ideas? I'm not too familiar with the menu's inner workings just yet.

Download a program called GlovePIE, it allows you to remap keys and mouse buttons to whatever you want. So you can remap tab to the same key and your pipboy which will allow you to use the same key to open and close the pip boy. I use this for games that won't let you bind the arrows keys for movement and games that don't utilize the mouse 4 and 5 buttons. It is the best thing ever.
http://carl.kenner.googlepages.com/glovepie_download