I think I have a successful installation of FCOM (successful in that I can only get the game to crash after about an hour of intentionally trying to do so).

So with stability in mind, I'm going to limit myself to "just" ten more mods.

But I need your help!

If you were going to limit yourself to just 10 more must-have mods to install on top of FCOM, what would you choose?


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Mad props to Beamer159 for his Youtube FCOM installation tutorial! - http://www.youtube.com/user/Beamer159#p/u/6/XneMbc8nO4Q

As well as some serious thank you's to the authors of the mods that made FCOM possible.

You guys rock!

Realistic Leveling

Quest Award Leveller

Supreme Magicka

Deadly Reflex

Enhanced Economy

Enhanced HotKeys

Map Marker Overhaul, Heck, all of theNiceOne's mods are great.

Darnified UI <- should not count as it doesn't take up an esp slot.

Any face texture replacer <- Vanilla faces are so GD ugly.


Those are probably ones I use in almost every install.

Enumerated, but randomly and not by importance:

1. QTP 1.3 Redimized if your graphics card is up for it.

2. Better Cities, if your CPU is up for it.

3. Unnecessary Violence II (I can't stop marveling at what was able to be accomplished in that mod).

4. Deadly Reflex 6

5. Companion Vilja (and my personal favorite, Vilja as Moonshadow Elf from the customization pack)

6. Kinda hesitant to put this but so far it's working on my system: VORB. Adds some variety to the female NPCs; anything that breaks the monotony of character models in a video game is great for me.

7. OBGE Liquid Water (if your graphics card can handle it)

8. Let The People Drink!

9. The Imperial Waters (goes great with 8).

10. The Duke Patrick Nosferatu Vampires mod. I'm not very far into the game yet but I've run into one vampire so far... They can do some scary stuff with that mod. I ran for it as the vamp killed the guardsman that came to defend me.

I'm all over UV II right now, and I'm sure it'll only get better as some of the early bugs are fixed. It's very polished for a first release and adds a bunch of fun to the game; I've been wanting to play a dual-wielding battlemage since the mod was announced a year ago, and now I can

It should not be crashing at all. Perhaps it would be best to look beyond that YouTube guide, however good it might or might not in fact be. It could be that there are things you have yet to do (or even, realise).


What a horrible proposition. I neither use FCOM nor limit myself to such a paltry amount of mods. But as you wish...


Streamline
Oblivion Stutter Remover
Fast Exit 2
-Elys- Universal Silent Voice
Zero Annoying Comments and Messages
Toggleable Quantity Prompt
DarNified DarkUI
[a leveling mod (e.g., nGCD, Realistic Leveling or Oblivion XP)]
Alternative Beginnings
Enhanced Economy


Cruel. Very cruel. So many essentials that I would add... but there is no room!

I don't know if you have COBL, Armamentarium, Harvest [Flora], and Enhanced Economy as part of your FCOM install, but they should be.

Unique Landscapes is a bunch of esp's, but really one mod right?

And All Natural + Immersive Interiors + AWLS

Plus you should have obse plugins: Fast Exit 2 and OSR.

You can actually add a bunch of stuff on top of FCOM, if your base install is done properly, it's not as crashy as most people think.
EDIT: Like xxx_tricky_xxx said below. The only thing I stayed away from with FCOM was mods that added lots of NPCs/AI.

1. http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2764 by, of course, DarN.
This essential mod goes a long way toward making Oblivion's consolized interface useable. Configurable from within the game via a menu. I modify it with one of Luchaire's re-colorings, either http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16387 or http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16897 I also use http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14822 by WillieSea and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19063 by Badmagic to enliven the map with color and to replace what I consider to be ugly map markers with more aesthetically pleasing X's.

2. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14065 by tejon, or http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13879 bu ABO.
Two excellent character-levelling mods that do away with stat management, allowing the player to concentrate on roleplaying. Realistic Leveling tends to be the better mod for the more jack-of-all-trades characters or for characters that change during the course of a game. nGCD tends to be the better mod for characters that fit conventional Dungeon-and-Dragons archetypes and never deviate from that during the course of a game.

3. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14304 by tejon.
This mod allows the player to control the speed of advancement of each skill. Easily configurable via an .ini.

4. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11237 by tejon. Willpower again has an affect on the player's vulnerability to magic, as in previous ES games.

5. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7484 by Deathless Aphrodite.
Makes the player lose fatigue when running. When the player's fatigue hits 0 he starts to walk. Also allows the player to sprint for a brief time.

6. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25078 by TheNiceOne.
Using this mod merchants' gold goes up and down with each trade. Also does away with the haggle slider (what a relief!) Allows the player to specify how much gold they recive from looting containers, enemies, as quest rewards, etc. All configurable via .ini.

7. http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37904 by Leviathan1753. I've just started using this mod but already it's become a must-have for me. It allows the user to configure exactly how they want creature/NPC leveled lists to behave. It can even send enemies on patrols away from their spawn points, which I love.

8. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16513 by Bananasplit, Wolfslady, Reckless, SilentResident, Nernie, Vorians and Ismelda.
The way the cities of Tamriel should have looked. Spend hours wandering around like a tourist, awestruck at how different (and gorgeous) everything looks. Comes in modular form - you can choose to redo all of Cyrodiil's cities or just one. In my current game I'm using http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=33003 by Arthmoor. Places the cities back in the Tamriel worldspace where they should have been in the first place, on PC at least. The wonderful, rustic wood walls around Bruma are worth the price of admission.

9. http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=984109 by XMarksTheSpot, Brumbek & Ismelda.
Another mod I can't play without anymore. It adds windows that turn off and on in synch with day/night cycles and also, optionally, smoke from chimneys. Comes with a nice variety of window color tints too.

10. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2536 by Max Tael. One of the plugins in Max Tael's Natural Environments. Adds non-hostile animals such as birds and butterflies.

I never found adding mods on top of FCOM to cause much instability. Most crashes you get are probably going to be from bad spawns or too much AI going on in one spot. At least, this is what I have experienced.

Don't forget the memory limit. No matter how stable your setup, if you hit the memory barrier Oblivion will always crash. This is easier to work around on a 64 bit OS with the 4GB patch, but for those stuck on a 32 bit OS like me it's always something to be aware of.

Yeah, when I had FCOM running, it crashed a lot for me too, and I followed that same video guide as well. Did everything I was told. Wasn't too bad though. I mean, it was still playable, just a bit annoying and frustrating. Like whenever I was in the Imperial Marketplace, it would crash when I would look in a certain direction. If I wanted to cross the Imperial Market, I would have to keep running straight towards the gate without looking to the left lol, or the right depending on which gate I started at. And it would crash sometimes when I would enter a loading screen. and some places would be off-limits to me for a limited time, like Anvil for example, due to consistence crashing. I would have to return to Anvil, without it crashing, after spending time doing other things.

And I forgot to add that it would crash almost every time I waited for 24 hours.

Oblivion stutter remover with heap replacement is a must, particularly if you're running a lot of mods. You'd think with a name like that it would be overstating what it could do, but the heap replacement/critical sections portions are nothing short of magic, and make the game run so much better.

And Darnified UI/DarkUI'd Darn, depending on preference. These two mods don't alter any actual gameplay but they do make playing vanilla infinitely more pleasurable. Not that I've ever done that after my first playthrough .

DarkUId Darn,
Oblivion XP,
Armamentarium/Artifacts,
Enhanced economy,
OBGE3 with Liquid Water,
Duke Patricks MC & CA,
Roberts Male and HGEC,
EGM,
AV Uncapper,
Texture replacers like Quarl, RTNM, Insanity, Books, etc.
ahhhhh......and 10. OSR!!!

Haha, that's 11 lines, many of which include multiple mods . "Texture Replacers" could cover dozens, and even "Robert's Male and HGEC" could consist of at least 10 by the time you get stock replacers/etc in there.

Duke Patrick's archery and melee mods

Less annoying magic experience

race balancing project

Integration: the stranded light

Audacious magery

probably a choice of mod that changes guard/crime behavior.

The rest depends on personal desires, but those should improve on a lot of facets that FCOM doesn't touch much.