so, i deleted both ini files and let fallout 3 recreate them, then only made the needed changes.. and so far my game hasnt crashed at all..

Good to hear.
I think I forgot to mention that you also need to reapply Archive Invalidation in FOMM, because it sets a few ini settings that are also required. If you had installed DarnUI via FOMOD you will also have to reinstall that, because it also makes a few changes to the Font settings.

Overall when tweaking the ini you need to be careful. The problem is that also the ini suggestions even on sites like Tweakguides are often useless or bad. Bethesda made a few changes to the engine and people still think the same things that worked in Oblivion will still work in Fallout, which simply isn't true in many cases.

yep, i reinstalled Darns UI and the pipboy PDA and i reactivated the Archive Invalidation , so thanks for the help

EDIT: I'm finding FWE very fun to play, but i die all the time, i try my best to avoid the big battles, but i take way to much damage, can anyone give me some FWE starting advice, how do i proceed with first couple of levels, the raiders outside super duper mart kill me easy..

Mines, lots of mines ! And plan your attack, of course.
I was able to make some good progress in the game by using mines (a little sneak to place them ahead of me) and luring the ennemies to step on it. Grenades are also very useful.
For the rest, do not hesitate to flee and to avoid too large battle. FWE is a different kind of fun but it's much more rewarding.

PS: I'm also using the esp coming with 'an evening with mr Manchester' mod that makes the mines faster and more powerful.

FWE Turns One!

That's right . . . a year ago today marked the first release of Fallout3 Wanderers Edition. The mod has come a long way since it's humble beginnings and I feel that FWE has evolved substantially over the year. What started out as a mod that initially just merged and balanced a few dozen individual mods, FWE now builds-off over 70 integrated mods by adding many new features and gameplay elements that are unique and distinctive to FWE. As I've learned more about modding (and scripting), and as a number of individual's have stepped forward to help develop various parts of FWE further, the mod has grown increasingly more polished, refined, and sweeping in that changes it makes to the fallout3 game.
History time (for those who are interested . . . I apologies for any perceived self-glorification)

For those who weren't around in the beginning, the first five versions of FWE (i.e. the non "Master Release" versions) was a series of about a dozen individual modules that could mostly be used individually or all together. In the early days, Fritz_Fretz here on the forums was a tremendous help in testing and validating a lot of FWE's content. In addition, Fritz took the Primary Needs mod, originally made by K.Schenk, and greatly improved the scripting, reliability, and flexibility of the mod. Today, I think his contribution has made FWE's integrated primary needs mod one of the best, most developed, "Needs" mod available.

In March, a number of modders got together than formulated the groundwork for the FOIP program, an effort to get many of the larger mods playing together well. This included XFO, Classic Fallout Weapons (CFW), FOOK, FWE, MMM, and WMK initially. There was a lot of collaboration, and FOIP has worked reasonable well since it's beginnings to provide compatibility patches for the community.

Oh, back to the individual modules . . . the upside of FWE's older, multiple-module format, is that these modules made FWE, in many ways, more modular than the version today is. The downside is that new features I wanted to add to FWE would often require many of the individual modules as a master . . . so things got confusing fast with overrides, and masters all over the place. I actually needed a flow chart to keep all the overrides straight . . . and compatibility patches? Those were a nightmare to try and manage.
So, around the start of June I rebuilt all of FWE from the ground, integrating all of the various changes and tweaks into a master file format (hence the master release version naming), with an associated .esp file, plus a few additional pluings. Since the master release, FWE has continued to add a few new integrated mods at each major new version, but the bulk of the effort has been fine tuning balance, fixing bugs and glitches, and developing novel gameplay changes for FWE.

Since the master release, a number of others have helped out with FWE's development in some key ways, and FWE wouldn't be nearly what it is without their contributions and support. This includes Kai Hohiro, jjgun, delamer in particular, who all put a lot of time into developing and testing FWE. In addition, JustinOther, The 3rd Type (recently), and a host of others have helped out in various ways. My thanks go out to all of you!

What is next for FWE? We were half-hoping that FWE 5.0 would be done by FWE's birthday, but we didn't want to rush things out the door in a half-polished state. That being said, the next version of FWE is a major step forward. The new integrated menu system has nearly 40 different control settings you can specify in-game, that let you tailor many aspects of the gameplay to your liking, from radiation accumulation rates and to enabling/disabling new features to adjusting global damage multipliers and changing ammo/chem rarity on the fly. In addition, the next version of FWE will come with four "preset" options, that let you radically change the settings at the push of a button. Want the game to be more like "vanilla" fallout? Use the vanilla preset. You can use the Harsher Wasteland preset to make everything much more difficult for you masochistic types. You can then tweak or customize settings based off the preset values. A consequence of the in-game "control panel" is that many of the optional esp files are no longer needed and can be removed from your load orders, keeping the number of files to a minimum. In addition, we're re-structuring all of FWE's documentation into a much clearer and easy to navigate HTML file . . . something that should have been done a long time ago. And . . . there are the usual new surprises and additions that will be unveiled in the not too distant future.

If you're still reading this, thanks! I hope you found this little perspective back on FWE's history interesting. I have to say, it's been quite a ride for me and I never imaged playing a part in developing a large mod like FWE. I've learned a lot along the way, met some great people, and continue to be motivated by all of your good ideas and continued support.

Cheers!

First rule: Don't charge into battle. Some of your enemies have ranged weapons that will screw you up. Particularly automatic weapons can rip you to threads in no time. Bringing a sword to a gun fight will get you killed.
Second rule: Start the party with a bang. When you spot the enemy, find a cover, and shoot enemies with ranged weapons. You may get time to kill one or two of them before they start shooting.
Third rule: When they start shoting, take cover.
Forth rule: Let the enemy come to you. They will often come running around your cover, allowing you a few seconds to take them out. Usually you can take out one or two of them before they start giving you damage.


:foodndrink: Congratulations! :celebration:

Hey Mez,
Congratulation on reaching such a major milestone!

I can can certainly relate to they modular god/bad issues. Updating a mod that is made up of truly independent modules is HARD!
Every time I begin working on another update, I consider doing away with my modules and just making a FULL version, but I like to give uses a choice, and it makes my mod more compatible.

The problem is that too many people actually think that if they just don't use my Weapons module, that my mod will be totally compatible with any other weapons mod . . . which is sooo NOT true.
Plus some people are never happy with everything that I put in each module and are ALWAYS asking me to split things into smaller modules . . . so you can never please everyone, no matter how much you try.

Anyhoo, congrats! And good luck on wrapping up v.5.0!
Oh, and have fun with your html doc.

Thanks!

Yes, writting the docs is always sooooo much fin

If you ever decide to do just a merged version of the module, please feel free to look at how FWE's in-game menu system is implemented in you want to go that route. It would be relatively easy for many of your modules to have them toggleable in-game . . . obviously not everything, but some parts certainly could be.

Great Job FWE team!

I started playing FWE when it was first introduced, and have loved the evolution of the project over the months. I think FWE is the very best immersion-enhacning mod available, and am thankful for all the work you guys put into it. I can't really describe in words how Good FWE truely is, I can't play Fallout3 without FWE anymore. so I'll sum it up with this:

:turtle:

Keep up the Great work!

Miax

Oh a turtle. My heart melts! Thank you!

:celebration:

This means it took me almost a year to finally come around and start using this wonderful mod. Just about 2 weeks ago I was cleaning up and found my printout of the FWE readme from (I believe) Febuary.

Here's to another year!!

I wonder what fun new things it will bring!

I remember seeing FWE launch. I thought "Do we really need another overhaul?"

Little was I to know that soon enough it would change fallout in ways I hadn't even imagined, and that a year later I'd still be playing, and loving every second of it - all thanks to FWE. So thank you, FWE team, authors of included mods, and those who've provided feedback that allowed them to improve what was already a fantastic mod.

<3

(This doesn't mean you can STOP, though - really looking forward to next release )

edit: If we're giving starting advice, here's mine:
Run. Not away from battle, towards it! Take Charge! as soon as you can, if you can get close enough to an enemy to reach them by running, you can whack them with something pointy/shoot them in the face several times before they've managed to get a single shot off.

Happy Birthday FWE and big kudos to Mez for creating the, in my opinion, best overhaul for any Bethesda game.

It's a pleasure and honor for me to be part of the team.

Glad I finally jumped aboard the ship, but better late than never, eh?

sweet........i can change the ammo to 50 calibre myself. the smith and wesson 500 is significnatly more powerful than a teeny weeny .44 magnum. that should be the "power armor killer" gun.

and congrats on FWEs birthday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZGi57Zl1Qk&feature=related

I love FWE. Happy Birthday!

My only wish is there was some way for FWE/WMK to 'intercept' weapon records from other mod sources (20th century weaps, alexscorpions, water tower hideout, underground hideout) and boost their damage to be in line with the changed vanilla weapons, but I know that's impossible. Oh well, if wishes were fishes, the world would really smell!

CONGRATS AGAIN!!

Sounds like a request for http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1064719

Morphine.

Edit:
To expand:
Stock up on the stuff. It's handy because not only does it give you 25 DR (Which is more than most early sets of armor!) but it also makes you immune to the crippled limb effects, which really just take a fat dump on your day.

Sadly, my character is a total junkie- the first thing I do in any location is try to trade for more opiates. But, in all honesty, that extra damage shrug off is totally worth it.

Happy Birthday FWE

That is amazing that FWE is a year old, you must be so very proud of how much it has changed and grown

I am very glad to hear that you are not rushing to get the 5.0 version done and out the door without being up to par in your eyes. It really shows that you put a lot of hard work into it and want us to have the best game and as little bugs as possible. I have waited this long to play a new game with FWE, I can wait as long as it takes (besides, I am waiting for a few other mods as well)

I am also very pleased to hear that you will be including preset options!! I love that feature cause it gives us a base to work with while we can make little adjustments as we play the game. You really do think of everything!

Thank you to everyone involved with the mod in one way or another (modders, supports, testers, etc)

Start with a bang, indeed, and the bigger the better. A quick grenade (use the grenade hotkey) into the middle of a group of raiders can take out a few and leave the rest vulnerable to a few VATS or BT-assisted shots from an accurate weapon, the better to conserve ammo.

:wub:

I enjoyed reading the history, and nice work on the mod! I recently purchased FO3 GOTY edition on Steam (winxp), and last night I installed FWE 4.1.1, MMM 5.0, DarnUI a11.1, and the things required for them to run: FOMM, FOSE, CRAFT and CALIBR. Amazingly, everything worked first try after carefully following READMEs and I have only had 1 crash (something to do with using frag mines on a locked box?).

However, I'm completely new to FO3 and the massive number of changes that FWE introduces are not entirely consolidated anywhere into a newbie guide (I have played previous gamesas games and fallout games). For example, what is the recommended/cheapest way to clear RAD accumulation, since it doesn't appear to go down with time? What alternate history starts are safe for a first time player? I chose wastelander, but was tempted to choose Outcast except for the fact that I was worried that being in Outcast faction may make me miss out on game story/quest interaction with the Brotherhood. What amount/type of healing would you recommend taking into the wasteland on hunting/exploring trips? Any tips on repairing weapons in FWE vs. vanilla? At what levels is it safe to try different DLC content in FWE?

In short, there are a million good tutorials for vanilla FO3, and it would be nice to translate one of those into a FWE edition.

p.s. - googling for info about FWE, I've read shotguns were imbalanced in FWE (doing too much damage). Is that still a concern for 4.1.1 or was that addressed months ago? Thank you to anyone who answers my various questions!

:celebration:
After getting the itch to play FO3 again I'm very happy to have found FWE. The original games could be brutal and merciless to young characters... it's a apocalyptic wasteland after all, where survival means picking your battles when possible, preying on the weak (good or bad), and running away otherwise... (tip: get yourself a scoped weapon!)

Question: From BookPerks readme:

What does the first bolded text mean? Does it relate to CRAFTed repair items? Does the second bolded text mean that weapon/armor health is increased above it's normal health? The wording is not so clear.

RE: How to Survive

My favorite way to assault a compound is to circle around it and leave a string of mines in key areas. I then equip a high powered rifle, preferably scilenced, and take a shot or two from each spot. If I'm detected then the hostiles converge on my back trail of mines, I won't ever see it because I'm half way to my next vantage point. After a few times around I pick up any untripped mines and tighten my perimeter. The trick is to avoid any confrentations until you get to Minefield.

Thanks sooo much! I'm not sure when that will be, but eventually I would like to try doing and in-game menu for my mod (if I am actually able to make one).
BTW: I'm still working on updating all my documentation since v.3.2 of my Realism Tweaks was released. But I'm getting close . . . just have to finish up my FO3 website pages.

@Kai Hohiro:

I thought the FOIP patch was for FWE and EVE, not EWE. EWE incorporates EVE but is different. Thanks.