... is?

Some at least seem to conflict with various other things, for instance Broken Steel. No doubt, I haven't looked at all of them, so - what's the optimal choice here?

I'd like to know too, I haven't heard of any other than 'Alternate Start - Roleplayers' and 'The Eagle Has Landed - Enclave MQ Overhaul' which is still a beta and much more than just an alternative start.

I'm definitely getting bored with the original start and I don't want to use a save at the vault every time either, depending on the mods I use.

I would think the main way alternate start mods conflict is by forcing you to skip various early stage quests, the vault 101 ones. You could probably just complete them via console with the setstage command, and use whatever you want. I wonder if any alternate start mods do that for you.

I have an alternate start mod called Faction Start on the works.
The difference between Faction Start and AS-R:
- Faction start, as you might guess from its name, allows you to pick factions to join rather than histories. However, many factions are identical to AS-R's histories, such as Outcasts or Talon Company

Faction starts include:
- Brotherhood of Steel: Initiate
- United States Enclave: Commanding Officer, Officer, Soldier, Scientist
- Mercenaries: Reilly's Rangers, Talon Co., Regulators
- Vaults: 101 (vanilla), 106, 108, 87 (Super Mutant captive)
- Misc: Raider, Megaton citizen, D.C. Scavenger, Slaver, Escaped Slave
And more..

- Faction Start gives you a bunch of boosts that fit the factions. Including:
* Opening up Raven Rock for Enclave characters
* Making Outcasts verbally friendly with player. Outcast players start automatically with the scavenging quest.
* Opening up Citadel and allowing PA training and trading - without need to ask for permission
* Chinese Guerilla starts at Mama Dolces
* Slavers start with Mesmetron and Grouse's quest automatically triggered.
And more...


The problem is that not all starts have any actual scripts to handle equipment and the actual "starting". Only some half of the starts (34 in total) have scripts. I'm busy with Eagle has Landed but I try to put much time on FS.

I aim for minimal changes to vanilla, but two faction changes had to take place: Outcasts are now friendly with the Brotherhood and the Enclave is friendly with Rivet City (the only faction with official hostilities in the game files)

What you could do is make a mod free save at the end of the vault, then use that with the mods you want installed. That is how I do it. My mod free save that I have been using for this with a "generic" character is over a year old.

It's mostly for balancing reasons I don't want to keep a vanilla save at the exit, like how ART reduces ammo in the vault a lot whereas unmodded you leave the vault with quite a big supply of 10mm ammo (over 100 rounds). And the mod also reduces the skill bonus for the medical bobblehead, but with a vanilla save you'd still have got the full bonus.

I guess you don't get it. Unless you have mods you absolutely MUST have during the vault playthrough, a mod free save at the exit of the vault works fine. Load your mods, load this save. Tweak your character and exit the vault.

Hm. *sigh* You're probably right (that this is the best way). And I'm not gun shy with mod managers/tools, or the console for that matter. OK.

Well, thanks for the replies. More perspectives are always welcome! I'll keep an eye out for your mod too, Pistolero. Thanks for the heads up.