Found: One Troll

True to my word, since I earned my certification earlier this week I’ve been spending most of my free time playing Fallout 3 (again). The last time I played Fallout 3 was just after release, and I completed the game before there were any well-made mods or official DLC available for it. Unlike a few fans of the original Fallout series, the previous canon entry of which was released in 1998, I thought Fallout 3 was actually a pretty damn good game. I’d go so far as to say it was the best game of 2008. It captured the feel of the original games sufficiently well, although I thought it could have been thematically darker.

On my current playthrough, I decided to wade into the pool of mods available at The Fallout 3 Nexus. There are a lot of really great mods out there, so I figured I’d compile them into a list.

• The first mod you’ll want isn’t a mod at all, but an application to manage the rest of them. The Fallout 3 Mod Manager gives you some great features that the stock Fallout launcher does not, including the ability to change mod load orders to avoid conflicts and to compile and decompile the archive files used by BethSoft to store their texture and sound files.
• The first real mod you’ll need will be either ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated or Archiveinvalidation Validator. Many mods include custom textures or sound files. In order to use these new files you need to add lines to the ArchiveInvalidated.txt file in the root Fallout folder as well as flipping a variable in another game file. Both of these mods take care of those steps for you, but they go about it in different ways. The first completely bypasses the process, forcing Fallout 3 to load new textures and sounds in place of the originals by default. The downside to this method is that for any textures that you haven’t replaced, Fallout 3 assumes that you want to use the lowest resolution textures it has. The second mod automates the process of generating an ArchiveInvalidated.txt file, but it isn’t perfect and an improperly built text file will crash your game. Personally, I use so many texture replacers that I opted for the first option.

The list continues after the jump.

The Big Mods:

• Fallout Script Extender is necessary for some of the more extensive mods. If you don’t install the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch or the Weapon Mod Kits then you don’t need it.
• The Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch fixes a significant number of bugs in the original game. A lot of them are really minor (an item misplaced in the game world so it’s a few inches off a desk, etc.) but some are large (perks not supplying the indicated effect). In a game world the size of Fallout 3, I find many of the issues fixed by this patch to be forgiveable. Most players will never notice the bugs addressed by this patch, while others (OCD RPG gamers like me) will find this patch essential to their continued sanity.
• The Weapon Mod Kits let you modify the stock weapons that you find in the game with suppressors, extended magazines, and scopes, among other things. In combination with the Zooming Scope mod, this makes the hunting rifle (and all rifles, really) much more useful than it used to be.
• Mart’s Mutant Mod greatly increases the wasteland’s biodiversity. First and foremost, it makes every critter you encounter unique. With MMM, size, attack damage, and texture is unique for every creature in the game. In addition, you can choose to add other behavior to in-game enemies including factions (enemies will attack each other in addition to you), target selecion intelligence (weak enemies may choose not to attack you on sight, or may run), and looting (enemies loot corpses of their kills and the fruits of their labor can, in turn, be found on their bodies). It also adds several new enemies.
• The Fallout 3 Overhaul Kit is a truely massive mod. I don’t have it installed because I’m about 90% certain that it would conflict with some other mod I’ve got installed. Its sheer scale earns it a place on this list, however. Check its Features List at FO3Nexus for more details.
• The Fallout Interoperability Program is necessary if you install more than one of the four mods above (UF3P, WMK, MMM, FOOK). The FOIP makes these mods play nice together.
• CALIBR is a mod that forces other mods which add weapons to the game to use common ammunition types^[1], making life easier for everyone.
• CRAFT allows the player to construct new items at the in game workbenches. It is required to make other mods, which add new schematics to the game, work.
• Built For The Future adds a new player home and questline to the game. The questline runs in parallel with the main questline, so it’s tough to miss. It also adds a bit more mystery to the original questline, especially if you’re playing the game for the second time. The home itself includes a manual for the Power Armor Training perk, which is normally not available to the player until nearly the end of the game. Personally, with as much territory as this game has to explore I think it makes a lot more sense for the perk to be available sooner. The home also includes storage areas, a well-appointed galley and armory, a personal robot, workbenches, infirmary, sleeping quarters, and other items. This is one of the better-built add-on homes available.

Smaller Mods:

• Repair Rethought Reborn allows you to repair weapons and armor with more items, including scrap metal, glue, and tin cans. It also increases your repair effectiveness if you are carrying tools such as a hammer and wrench. It is a vast improvement over the original repair system. Update: If you are having issues with this mod crashing your game, check out this post.
• If you are looking for a more FPS-like Fallout, Accurate Assault Rifles and Accurate Sniper Rifles will help. They make the weapons much more useful at medium and long ranges, respectively.
• Speaking of sniper mods, Alexscorpions Sniper Gear adds several .50BMG riles to the game.
• If you aren’t satisfied with the Power Armor in the game, which really is not the über-armor it was in the original games, Better Power Armor is the mod for you. There are several versions of the mod to choose from, depending on how much you want to buff the armor.
• Let’s face it, there’s a lot of gibbing in this game. Shoot any enemy in the face and their head flies off. Sensible Dismemberment tones down the amount of flying limbs. There are two versions of this mod, one which merely makes dismemberment less likely, and another which restricts dismemberment to only certain heavy weapons.
• Amplified Crippled Effects brings the effect of wounding an enemy more in line with that of the original Fallout games. Disabling an enemy’s arms or legs will severly impede their movement speed or accuracy, and a if a head or torso shot does not kill your foe it will at least blind them or cause them to stumble.
• With all of the Ultimate Perk Packs installed, you’ll have over 70 new perks to choose from to further customize your character. Some are useful, some aren’t, just like the original perk set. Goes great with the similar-but-smaller Vault Dweller’s Survival Perk Pack.
• The Frederyck Tactical Weapons pack adds a bunch of tacti-cool weapons to the wasteland. The coolest part of this mod is that you’ll find enemies actually using these weapons, and they’re actually fairly balanced. The ones that I’ve encountered so far have been on par in terms of weapon damage and accuracy with the other weapons in the area.
• If you need to ask why I’d want a 1911 in the game, you need to come to the range with me. This single mod has more skins for it on FO3Nexus than most of the stock weapons in the game, a testament to the popularity of the weapon. Be sure to grab the fixed .esp file after you install the base 1911 to avoid conflicts with other mods.

Radio Mods:

Personally, one of the things I love most about Fallout 3 is the radio soundtrack. However, when you’re approaching 60 or 80 hours in the game world, it can get aggravating to hear the same patriotic tune or 50′s bop for the 100th time. Fortunately, there’s a solution (or several)! Read on:

• The GNR — More Where That Came From mod adds up to 100 new songs to the Galaxy News Radio lineup. The songs chosen for the song packs fit right in with game atmosphere and are largely from the same artists as the ones featured in the game. The second half of “Butcher Pete” is included!  As stated in the mod description, the songs are public domain. It also fixes several bugs with the GNR station, such as one bug which breaks the DJ’s news announcements when you reach level 20.
• 2xEnclave Radio does exactly what it sounds like: it adds 8 more American patriotic melodies to the Enclave Radio station.
• The Enclave Radio Extender lets you add your own music to this radio station. If you already own a lot of music that fits the mood of this station, you might consider this mod instead of the one immediately above.
• Agatha’s Radio Extender does the same thing as the Enclave Radio Extended, except for the station owned by Agatha. I recommend this one if you own a lot of classical violin music (and really, who doesn’t?).
• TenpennyTowerRadio implements a radio station that was supposed to be in the original game, but got dropped. The source of the broadcast is, of course, Tenpenny Tower.
• The Civil Defense Broadcast System adds a new radio station to the DC wasteland that plays cold war propaganda PSAs and music.
• The People’s Radio Station does the same thing, except the propaganda is for the Red Chinese. It complements some parts of the Fallout lore well.
• Talk Thing adds a talk radio station hosted by a Super Mutant. Strange doings.
• Radio KBAT and A Drama Radio Station both add stations that broadcast radio plays, if you’re into that sort of thing.
• IPip, More MP3 Radio, and VTAP PipBoy Radio all implement new radio stations based on your own MP3 collection. They should play well together so you can potentially add three brand-new custom radio stations with this method.

Texture Replacers:

As I mentioned earlier, ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated causes Fallout 3 to use low-res textures for everything, and it’s practically a required mod. Fortunately, that’s not really a problem thanks to these mods. Be warned, however, that using high resolution texture replacements will increase the amount of video memory required by Fallout 3. Installing high res textures has increased my memory usage by about 200MB, but I have RAM to spare.

• The Terrain Pack replaces all the textures for the ground, trees, and rocks with high resolution textures based on photographs. They look much better than the originals, which is true of everything in this list. With optional Rocks Add-on Pack!
• The Rivet City Texture Pack and Megaton Texture Pack retexture the obvious cities with photorealistic textures.
• HiRes Textures and HiRes Weapons increases the visual quality of the armor and weapons in the game significantly.
• Better Clutter makes a lot of the little things in FO3 look that much better.
• What’s Your Brand? replaces the cigarette packs and cartons in the game with something more distinct (and hi-res).
• These three mods replace the Nuka-Cola bottles and vending machines with hi-res versions
• Hi-res Historical Documents improves the quality of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Magna Carta at The National Archives.
• Enhanced Night Sky and Hi-Res Moon greatly improve the look of the night sky.
• Books Debunked makes all the books in the game look much less crappy.
• Better Booze contains several texture packs for your favorite adult beverages. All of them are good

I think that’s enough mods. I have others installed, but this was not intended to be an exhaustive list of every mod available. There are thousands at the Fallout 3 Nexus, and if you’re looking for something specific FO3N is a good place to start.

1. As opposed to one mod adding a weapon which uses “7.62x39mm” and another mod adding a weapon which uses “7.62 Kalashnikov” ammunition, making the two weapons incompatible and forcing the player to carry two types of ammo. CALIBR would force both of them to use one type or the other. [↩]