It seems that there are quite a few rumors flying around concerning UFP and whether to use it or not. So I created this thread to have the pros and cons illustrated and make it easier to figure out if you want to use it or not. I will update the first post with any updates that gets posted here. I will ignore minor things like cosmetics as they really have no impact on playing the game without bugs.

Pros:

1. Fixes Enclave spawning early in their camps fully equipped. And by early meaning right at the start, which can be gamebreaking as they kill NPC's that get close. (Verified by myself using FWE and all DLCs)


Cons:

1. Presidental Metro gets cluttered up at the entrance making your character become stuck. (Unverfied by me, as I haven't gotten that far in the game yet)

2. Broken Steel UFP causes CTD in some places as well as CTD when saving. (Verified by http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1073298-crash-on-save-what-might-cause-it/page__p__15605141__fromsearch__1&#entry15605141 )

Fixes for both these can be found http://rapidshare.com/files/366957276/DLM_UF3P-BS_fix.rar.html or http://www.mediafire.com/?z3qmlzyzomy

3. Water at Project Purity is radioactive (Unverified by me, again since I haven't gotten that far)


Please add any comments you have so we can get the info as detailed as possible and help people decide if they want to use UFP or not.

Good idea for a thread. Coming from Morrowind and Oblivion, the Unofficial Patches are pretty much essential, but I've also noticed that they are questioned more for Fallout 3. It's a pity they aren't updated/supported since quite a while. Not even counting more severe bugs Fallout 3 has lots of minor graphical annoyances, even when using the Unofficial Patch so it would be great if the development was continued.



I didn't get this with the Unofficial Patch and master updating.



I http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1073298-crash-on-save-what-might-cause-it/page__p__15605141__fromsearch__1&#entry15605141 that one. It was fixed by http://www.mediafire.com/?z3qmlzyzomy - and I guess by the one you linked to as well.

Personally, I ended up not using the Unofficial Patches. But now I'm using the main one again - and I haven't had any issues that I've noticed anyway.

Personally, I've never really had a need to use the UFP. With the exception of the hideous official v1.5 patch that totally screwed everybody's mods my game has always been pretty smooth for the most part. The little minor graphical bugs that UFP purports to fix were never really a big issue for me. In fact, many of them I never even noticed until I read their read-me. But, that being said, I did download and try it out after official v1.7 patch came out. Unfortunately, my experience was not very good at all. As others have mentioned, I got constant CTD's when saving, quicksaving and reloading. I especially got a lof of them in and around Rivet City, just as many others seem to have gotten. But, for the good news, for those who don't seem to have problems with it, most love it and are a loyal lot! It just didn't work for me, and most of what it says it fixes didn't really seem to be broken to me in the first place.

Just to get this as straight as possible: you got those using the Unofficial Broken Steel patch, right? I've seen reports on the main Unoffical Patch causing CTD's etc, but those are always very vague and I haven't noticed any issues.

To me it seems a bit that the issues with the Broken Steel patch has spilled over to suspicion of the others as well.

Anyone take the leap and MERGE all the UFP's together? Since I had all the downloaded content, and each of the patches, presumibly affecting different things, it seems safe to do. I did it with that java merge program .jar (cannot remember its full name ).. I still get ctd's from time to time (in combat primarily at this time) but have not traced their origin yet (reload save reload, in bad cases turn off mmm save reload re add mmm and proceed).

Why would you, it's pointless.

I personally don't use UFP. Even if it shouldnt cause crashes, except for the BS patch(which I'm not entirely convinced of), it under no circumstances actually improves stability.
And I've found some of it's "fixes" have annoying after affects when used in conjunction with other mods.

And it fixes nothing that makes me say "wow that totally improved my gaming experience".

To the best of my memory, yes. I usually try to be very through and read as much documentation as possible, and do my best to be sure I have everything running that would apply to my own content. But, that was a couple of months ago, lol. But I believe I was using the BS version/plugins.

I got the cluttered metro and radioactive water bugs, otherwise i see no increase in CTDs or any other ill effects.

Is there any way to fix the water bug? I svck at GECK and have no clue what should i look for with FO3Edit.

Here's a newer http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mnyy2mmznxu including the fixes for con A, B, and C (although con C has nothing to do with UF3P). What's happening with that is that other mods are editing the cells outside Project Purity, overriding BrokenSteel.ESM such that the new water Beth put there which is swapped later via http://geck.gamesas.com/index.php/RemapWaterType isn't switched with the clean water. The linked plugin reiterates those worldspace edits, so it should all work right provided those edits aren't overwritten (check for conflicts with FO3Edit to be sure). Con A and B should never reflect negatively upon UF3P as they were both flukes. Con A, Twilight Zone in White House Tunnel, was something no one saw coming (same thing happened in a FOOK file). Who'd have dreamed undeleting a moveable static could do that? Con B, CTD's outside Rivet City, was merely an FO3Edit mishap where a few undeletes ended up orphaned when copying. There's really no reason to not use UF3P provided you load it early. The pros, by far, outweigh the cons.

Note: If you already have an issue with unpure water outside Project Purity after the swap, load that plugin last and ~StartQuest RemapWaterTypeQUST.

^This. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...

I have to say that I'm 99% sure that the BS patch caused my issues with crashes on save (see link in post above). It was persistent until I removed the patch - after which I've never had it again.

I leave 1% for the possibility that it rather is the BS patch in conjunction with some other mod.

I don't use it anymore due to the fact that it's no longer being actively updated... Truly a shame.

I use the patch set and I find it stable. I made sure that I did my homework on the BS problems and got the patches for that ahead of time. It is a shame that it appears to be no longer updated. Having said that though, a lot of work went into its development and for that, I am grateful.

Whether or not people use it is ultimately a choice for them. As a long time user of it, I see no reason to discontinue the use of it.

For the user of the french version of fallout 3, there's the PNO available on wiwiland who is build upon the UFP without the bugs (as far as I can tell) and with more fixes.
It can be found here: http://gunblivion.wiwiland.net/ Maybe some kind of translation can be made, it's worth checking with the authors.