Hello,

After having been AMAZED at Skyrim, I thought I would give the Bethesda games a try, and so I'm starting with the latest of the Fallout series, New Vegas.

However, from the very first minutes, my playing pleasure has been destroyed by the poor user interface.

There are no shortcuts to view the map, to access the list of items.

And everything has to be done in that minuscule window of the pipboy.

The map is small. I SO miss hitting "m" and viewing a full-screen quality map.

The items management is small. I SO miss hitting "i" and viewing a list of my items, sortable thanks to the SkyUI mod improvements.

The weapons management is small. I'm under the impression we can't even sort weapons by type or specs, but maybe I'm mistaken.

All of it, within that too small pipboy.

... Actually, I came to thinking, I should be looking for a replacement to the pipboy O_o

But apparently, there is none. I searched a long time, without success. The best I found were "different skins" (like 2500), different appearances (like readius), improvements like smaller fonts and longer menus (for instance through MTUI or - I haven't tested that one, only youtubed it - Darnified).

I looked at mods, and in the mods I found small improvements, like MTUI and ShilohDS.

But they're as efficient as a band-aid on a severed limb, we still feel how much it's lacking when we come from Skyrim.

We still can't sort items, view a large-screen usable map, etcetera.

Before I simply decide it's a matter of personal tastes and that game isn't for me because of its UI (I'm not calling the game [censored] or anything, I fully reckon it's just me, not the game), I'm coming here to ask

Please, would you know if there would be, by any chance, a way to replace the pipboy and have better - usable, in a word - game menus ?

Thanks if you can tell me

Try using Darn's UI. It reorganizes various aspects of the UI to make it look better on a PC, rather than on a console. Smaller text for instance, and a zoom map you can zoom, among other things.

Thanks Nicho!

Can the item categories be sorted, for instance ? By power for the weapons for instance, by defence for the clothes ?

Can the map be viewed fullscreen, instead of being watched in the minuscule window of the pipboy ? Or at least in a larger dimension ?

No and no. There are some mods available that have created some sort of naming system in order to categorize items in your inventory though. And while even with Darn's UI you're restricted to using the map in the Pipboy, you can at least zoom in and out using your mouse wheel.

Allright, thanks for your clarifications, I'm grateful

It's really a pity, but with those limitations I will skip on FalloutNV, there's too much of an incompatibility in UI usage tastes here. Oh well, time to look at Oblivion

Try Fallout 3 which is actually a game developed by Bethesda, Fallout New Vegas was developed by Obsidian and not actually a true Bethesda game. Fallout 3 has more of a Bethesda feel to it which I'm sure you will notice if you play it.

But

I may be mistaken, of course, but doesn't fallout suffer from the same UI limitations ?

I read several times, while searching for mods, that the pipboy in New Vegas was a direct heir to the pipboy in Fallout 3, for instance.

If that still means the map will be annoying, the lists of items impossible to sort, the window interface minuscule, I may as well give up on it in advance, I'm afraid to say :-/

Use F1, F2, F3 and F4 those are shortcuts to the 4 screens of the Pipboy (IIRC)

It would be a shame if you passed on these games simply because of the UI. You will get used to it after awhile, and they are really good games once you get into them.


Just the first three, F4 doesn't do anything in the Fallout games. You're probably thinking of Oblivion. And the F1, 2 and 3 keys will have sub-menus you need to select. Also, pressing the Tab key will bring up the last screen that was active.

Just give the UI a chance it might take some time to get used to but over time it just feels the right UI for the game and it is very immersive since you are looking at your Pip Boy Glove.

I do not think you would like Oblivion's UI that much since in a lot of ways it is closer to the Fallouts if not using any UI mods. I prefer the Vanilla Oblivion UI.