On the note of Outcasts and Remnants, which version are you running? I'm not saying at all that OAR is the problem with my game, but since the release of Project Valkyrie and the associated changes in that version of OAR, I've noticed serious performance loss in areas that didn't used to be a problem (and afaik aren't touched by either of those mods) and a lot more general weirdness in the way Fo4 behaves.
I'm not at all suggesting causation here, but I've noticed what appears to be correlation.
Big Mods, Overhauls, AIO
I’ll say this not so much to spawn any discussion of the right way or wrong way, just a humble suggestion for folks who have problems or want a suggestion to maximize their enjoyment of them.
MODs like:
Tales from the Commonwealth
Wild Wasteland
Outcasts and Remnants
Project Valkyrie
Fusion City Rising
Diamond City Expansion (and a host of others like this)
**South of the Sea (and others like this)
Any AIO, like all settlements extended / clean and simple (and others like this)
Please, I do not just add them. Saying this or that does not work? maybe? More often and likely it is your specific and particular game.
I love them all and they are fantastic creations and each author is a genius and each one of them have given so much to me and the community.
But my rule I live-by. I TEST THEM. AND NEVER INSTALL THEM ALL at once. EACH ONE HAS some QUIRKS! It should not be expected that game functions will not be different in some way if you use them.
I start with a clean game vanilla (I mean “really clean and cleaned”) and bake them into a save at the vault elevator with other essential high load order mods UI mods and scripted ones like SS
. I test them repeatedly to lvl 20 to make sure they all play nice and do what I want them to do. At times this has taken me weeks. This isn’t so much game play as “deliberate and controlled testing. Only, when I am sure the combination works as intended, then and only then. I restart a new character “a new game and bake in the rest of my mods” weapons/outfits/companions/tweeks/etc. I add mods in sequence at this point layering all the rest like a cake at three save points. Falling out of the Cryo-Cell and the dark corridor before I pick up my pipboy for the first time and at vault exit. some mods are better to enable after exiting the vault like CWSS and I find some quest and companion mods work better if I enable them there. Lastly, I have mods that are installed but not enabled until specific in game requirements are met, quest completions and such - though few they are important.
Why all the above, For big mods like the ones above, “I do not want to move them or add them into a game, nor remove them from a game once started” If I do not have them at the vault exit, then I wait until the next playthrough.
The above will in many ways dictate what you can and cannot add to your game. They maybe one .esp but are equivalent to many and as you have also tested them you can better analyze a future problem or needed adjustment. Haha, another comment – they are complex mods in places as glitchy as Hangman’s Alley it is a real dice roll to use them and then throw an automated city plan in on top. I REALLY recommend this not be done at least until you are really good at some of the user tools and mechanics.
If you do add mods after doing all the above, cool. I write them down and date them. Once my game is started I will add specific mods and keep some. Others I will test in game and always go back to the save where I install them If I remove them. Still, once the game is started I recommend not adding a major mod, like the ones listed above until the end of what you wanted to do in your current play-through.
Once that happens “go wild” and really-really break that game and get an understanding of what you want to use in the next game and how far you can now push your next game.
Good Play-Throughs for me can last 400-800hrs, the upfront expenditure of time for me seems worth it.
These are some of the greatest mods but you kind of need to plan them out for when and where you use them. Often they do not work the way you want them too, hahaha not your mod so you will need to figure out how to work with it or not use. if already hundreds of hours in these are not mods you get lucky with just removing.
Oh, in my current playthrough:
I have over 350 mods and do have the below installed and working, but it took some work.
Outcasts and Remnants
Project Valkyrie
Fusion City Rising
Diamond City Expansion
South of the Sea
+ Elements of clean and simple and all settlements extended (heavily edited)
+ nearly all the SS add-ons
+ def_ui, vis, & av-crap
+ several other settlement overhauls
(-) I use very few ROTC city plans
(-) I add very few mods permanently once the game is started
(-) No scrap mods
Prep for this one playthrough took me over six weeks of daily work / testing and use of FO4edit and this is after 4000hrs of playing fallout from the vanilla game through the evolution of FO4 mods.
I say this, hoping folks will understand you don’t just add all these mods or even some of them without a little work or thought. Hahaha, and even more mistakes.
Start slowly with just one or two and enjoy them. In each new playthrough push your limits. As much to know your limits so then you can break them deliberately and not by accident.
