I'm currently playing the new FOOK beta, which is amazing, but I haven't been around FO3 in awhile and am not up to speed about what mods people consider "essential" these days.

Is FOOK or FWE the mod of choice?

FOOK is just incredible, having only really played vanilla + minor mods before.

it all depends on personal taste, Fook offers better weapons and such, while FWE adds more realism and immersion to the game, i choose FWE over FOOK, but thats my personal taste

So ... if only we could get both integrated? I see before FOOK 1.1 there was a compatibility patch, maybe there will be another soon.

More weapons + realism and immersion = win!

I choose FWE.

FWE is too hardcoe for me, I preffer FOOK2

It's not really like that.

Both teams have very different design goals and philosophies. It's not as simple "oh this one has these features and that one has those, mashing them together would bring the best of both worlds!". Doesn't work that way.
Saying one has more weapons and one more gameplay elements is oversimplifying it. Each mod adds an entirely different feel to the game.

For example sure we could add tons of weapons to FWE if we felt like that. But we don't because we are aiming for a specific feel and game balance.

I'm not saying a FOOK-FWE merger is bad, but it also wouldnt be better than FOOK or FWE on their own.

I tried the FOOK2 and FWE merger a while ago before the new updates and was surprised to find that I didn't like it all when they were combined. Then again, that patch is pretty buggy and what not as far as I remember.


I was a big Oblivion player for a long time before Fallout 3. So if you're an Oblivion fan, here's how someone explained it to me -

FWE is similar to Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.
FOOK2 is similar to Francesco's.

They're both totally different in what they aim to do for your gameplay experience, and its really up to your personal preference.
Personally, I like them both equally. I like FOOK2's new weapons and armors, but I also like FWE's chem system and its tougher gameplay.

Just try them both and see which one you like. I'm currently using FWE myself.

I hope that the upcoming FOOK and FWE can be run in the same load order and at least not malfunction tremendously.

Interoperability is a strength, even if the design goals of the 2 mods don't seem that they overlap for the best. That interoperability could be great for someone else.

I'm building FWE weapon handling into the FOOK followers' weapon selection intelligence for that aim. It is more difficult to do it to the FOOK embedded version of Phalanx than it is the upcoming standalone one because of FOOK's bazillion weapon classes hogging script space.

I seem to see a number of people posting mod lists which have both FOOK and FWE in them.

And btw, posts where someone is asking the crowd which mod to EXCLUDE are always disappointing. This post isn't worded exactly that way but, I have seen some that are, and I've seen posters who pop into threads which resemble this and make exactly those sorts of recommendations.

I'm currently using FWE, and earlier I used FOOK 2. I love them both, but I perfer the hardcoe gameplay of FWE to FOOK 2.

I would say that FWE is more like TIE.

Anyway, I love FWE. I tried FOOK2, but it didn't 'feel' right for me. To each his own I guess :shrug:

Thanks for the input everyone, I'll stick with FOOK for this playthrough and hit FWE next.

Man, I love Bethesda and their design philosophy of letting us (well, modders) mod their games.

Hopefully future Beth titles don't remove this capability.

Vanilla Fallout is unplayable at this point, compared to the phenomenal work of the FWE/FOOK teams and their ilk.

If I had to choose I'd go for FOOK2 but I'd still end up taking a lot of smaller realism mods particularly for ammo weight. Currently I'm playing a sketchy modlist with both, I spend a lot of time in FO3 Edit since there's no updateds patches yet.

Has anyone tried using primary needs, Real injuries, and Better Living Through Chems (BLTC) with FOOK 2 v1.1. I'm curious to know if they can play nice together. That could be an option for those that think FWE is too much for them if they can work together.

I, too, recommend playing either FOOK2 or FWE, but not both at the same time. It's fun and interesting (if a little time-consuming) to compare them by playing each on its own.

I know that possibly a lot of people load both, but there are so many conflicting design choices between the two overhauls, that I don't think such a merger captures the intent or vision of either mod very well.

gothemasticator

snip

wrong thread

Personally I choose FWE, but FOOK is still pretty neat; unfortunately it comes with a huge 1GB+ download.

I have always preferred FOOK. Tried FWE but it just wasn't my style.

Yes I did, it's much better to wait until FOOK2 1.1 is out of beta. Orfevs has kindly offered to make a patch for it. I use RIPN with RIPNO's patch and FOOK2 1.0 atm, it does make it a lot harder to survive especially if you have the damage increased with mods that change the combat game settings RIPNO's is what I build my load order around, I don't use a mod if its not compatible with. It's also possible to have that harsher wasteland feel you've just got to add the right mods, or take stuff out of the world by making your own which is what I've done.

Ok I have changed my mind after trying new version of FWE

It rocks !

FOOK2. I don't really like realism mods, and I only use FWE for a few things like Followers Enhanced (Which I'll have to give up in 1.1 ), and changing a few of the features. I could live without FWE, but not FOOK2.

FOOK 2 beta is very crashy and unstabile compared to FWE.

don't forget FWE is completely customisable through its ingame menu too, so if you find some aspect too hardcoe you can easily adjust it on the fly!

Nice.

The Fook2 BETA was released for people to help TEST the thing prior to release. The FWE Mainline was released as a polished form ready for widespread public use. There's a big difference in those points.

The version 2 of the fook2 beta which is not yet public happens to not be crashy.

If someone isn't volunteering their time as a BETA TESTER they should not download any BETA of anything, be it FOOK or FWE. I wonder if people think that FOOK, FWE, Phalanx, and other large mods have a battery of internal testers lined up in their midst testing everything as though they were straight out of Bethesda's QA department? Well, they don't.

I don't think its fair to directly compare, in an unquantified way, how FOOK BETA Version 1 has crash/stability issues compared with mainline FWE.

A so-called "open beta" makes for problems like this I think. I've even seen demands and insults from some users as a result of them having used the FOOK beta version 1. I've recommended for the future that FOOK do closed beta at least for round 1 of it, it will avoid a buncha annoyance and explain-time as a result of people who are unwilling to read and, maybe, unwilling to think.

I haven't really had problems with FOOK 1.1 beta, occasional crashes on fast travel but that is about it... and considering my mods list who knows what is causing the crash.

I love FOOK now, after spending a lot more time with it, the weapon selections are phenomenal.

I prefer the more streamlined FPS style gameplay of FWE, but miss the variety of enemy appearances in FOOK2. While FOOK2 does have a number great weapons, the shear number meant I was spending too much time in my Pipboy trying to figure out which gun to repair, and with what. That does get better over time though, as you get more familiar with the weapons. Overall, I'd like to see FWE's gameplay and balance effects, with FOOK2's weapons, armor, and worldspace changes, though possibly with the weapon selection edited a bit.