What are your essential mods?

Being a newb player to FO4, I've only recently gotten into the idea of modding. (Maybe 2-3 weeks of doing it?)

Woodfuzzy indicated that some of the older mods out there do things in a dangerous manner. Which is making me think of sanity-checking everything before a blindly-stupid download-and-destroy of my game occurs.

Now, I'd also been wondering how you guys did the complex city-plans and such. (Dayum!) I've just looked at the City Planners Toolkit - that's going to get downloaded tonight. (I have an idea for Hangman's Alley, will see if it's even possible. Thinking of a Hanging Judge or King of Swing bar. Suitably thematic to the name/area...)

You-all are long-term pro players and modders and builders. What mods do you consider to be on your essential list? Why?

Not looking to be overwhelmed, just looking for one or two good mods at a time.

Also thinking about it: What mods would you avoid like the plague? Why? (Being burned by them is assumed.)

Cheers!

Highly recommend going through all the add on packs that have been updated the last 6 months. All the mod authors have their own style and personality that can fit any style. Always fun to find the little details and touches they add. Logistics station is a must outside of those packs. I also always play with True Storms, Integrated Commonwealth, and Place Anywhere.

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/23102 This great little mods is a gamechanger and makes your want to actually use laser weapons.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/23780/

One more that’s a lot of fun...

Good luck!

I wont recommend any weapon, armor, environment etc mods as they're "personal" preference.
I will recommend the following.
F4SE
Place Everywhere
Better Console
Transfer Settlements

Junk Town cough cough wink wink

your on PC so get all the addons

uituit said:

Junk Town cough cough wink wink

your on PC so get all the addons

Click to expand...

I enjoy all the add-ons but to Uituit's comment. There is one plot that just maybe the one single plot of all the all the add-on that I use every playthrough over and over. Likely the most consistently utilized single plot out of all of the plot types in all the add-ons.

That is the "Diamond Power" plot from Junk Town.

Then an all-time favorite the: Stone Circle "this one freaked someone out "a-lot" a while back so I always build that one with reverence of that memory.

Then the Garden plot it has a rabbit I like. The waterfall adds an ambiance to the pool the garden contains where I place a strip cube over and it becomes the center of attraction for any settlement. As all the settlement girls seem to collect there.

You may also find a particular martial plot that is kind of special.

But, you decide. All the above is in JunkTown.

oh - Yes! now your other question! Is a Super good one!!! we love you for it!

"Also thinking about it: What mods would you avoid like the plague? Why? (Being burned by them is assumed.)"

I hate seeing folks ditch on a mod or author who has the balls to put themselves out there and contribute to the community. Often it isn't that the mod is all that bad "some can be" it is just as much or more so that the user is not reading, not practicing good mod discipline, not familiar enough with modding their game to use it.

All that said. Stick with suggestions above and/or well-established mods with lots of reviews and documentation. Most importantly authors don't break games "you do". so start slowly with just a few mods and test each new mod in your own game. "good mod / bad mod" No difference here. Then take responsibility for it. Test it and if it does not work as you expected then "GO BACK TO THE SAVE RIGHT BEFORE YOU INSTALLED IT and start replaying your save game from back there." haha, not really shouting and then simply remove the mod if you don't like it. Everyone is now happy!
A word of caution. If you don't go back in your save then you should not be removing it.
This, my friend, is good-mod discipline and the world is a better place!

Don't get frustrated and have some fun!

Yagisan said:

Oh - look at that, a question that seems tailored just for me. I'll break them up by groups.

Yagisan's Recommended Addons
Sim Settlements - Industrial Revolution
Sim Settlements - Rise of the Commonwealth
Sim Settlements - IDEK's Logistics Station (ESL Version)
Sim Settlements - Mega Pack - Year One
Sim Settlements - Junk Town
Sim Settlements - Flotsam and Jetsam
Sim Settlements - Wasteland Venturers 2 (All-In-One)
Sim Settlements - Industrial City
Sim Settlements - Ruined Homes and Gardens
Sim Settlements - Scrappers
Sim Settlements - SimHomestead
Sim Settlements - Altairp's Animal Farm
Sim Settlements - Creations By COOTS
Sim Settlements - MrJoseCuervo Addon Pack
Sim Settlements - VaultLand
Sim Settlements - Vault-Tec Tools
Sim Settlements - Awsometown
Sim Settlements - RS Buildings
Sim Settlements - Plots by Paw Paw

Yagisan's Recommended Structural Mods
Workshop Rearranged
G2M - Workshop
Thematic and Practical
Kraggles Structures

Yagisan's Recommended Decoration Mods
CREAtive Clutter
Do It Yourshelf
Modular Kitchen
CREAtive Gardens
Unicorn Farts and Godrays - Stained Glass Workshop Mod
Old World Radio
Lore Friendly Posters
Solar Panels

Yagisan's Suggested Creation Club Items
Home Decor Workshop Pack (cceejfo4001-decorationpack.esl)
Arcade Workshop Pack (ccbgsfo4045-advarccab.esl)
Coffee and Donuts Workshop Pack (ccfsvfo4003-slocum.esl)
Nuka-Cola Collector Workshop Pack (cceejfo4002-nuka.esl)

Yagisan's Mandatory Epic City Plans
Sim Settlements City Plans - Lakeside Cabin Brewery by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Northwest Pylon Mines by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Lakeside Pumpstation Fishery by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Vault 111 Medical Centre by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Fallen Tree Valley Molerat Ranch by Yagisan and UniversalLibrary
Sim Settlements City Plans - Mass Fusion Containment Shed Nuclear Reprocessing by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Roadside Pines Motel Trading Post by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Natick Power Substation Industrial Park by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Red Rocket Natick Outpost by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Red Rocket Fort Hagen Outpost by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Nu Cafe Ola Rest Stop by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - The Overlook Observatory by Yagisan

Yagisan's Mandatory Epic Life Changing Mods
Yagisan's Better Caravans

Click to expand...

Now that is how a pro answers a user question!
So many of his recommendations I have Endorsed, use and consider essential in my own game but.....

His last one is just fantastic. After 3000 hrs playing fallout it is like a cold glass of water on a hot day!

Yagisan's Mandatory Epic Life Changing Mods
Yagisan's Better Caravans

Yagisan said:

Oh - look at that, a question that seems tailored just for me. I'll break them up by groups.

Yagisan's Recommended Addons
Sim Settlements - Industrial Revolution
Sim Settlements - Rise of the Commonwealth
Sim Settlements - IDEK's Logistics Station (ESL Version)
Sim Settlements - Mega Pack - Year One
Sim Settlements - Junk Town
Sim Settlements - Flotsam and Jetsam
Sim Settlements - Wasteland Venturers 2 (All-In-One)
Sim Settlements - Industrial City
Sim Settlements - Ruined Homes and Gardens
Sim Settlements - Scrappers
Sim Settlements - SimHomestead
Sim Settlements - Altairp's Animal Farm
Sim Settlements - Creations By COOTS
Sim Settlements - MrJoseCuervo Addon Pack
Sim Settlements - VaultLand
Sim Settlements - Vault-Tec Tools
Sim Settlements - Awsometown
Sim Settlements - RS Buildings
Sim Settlements - Plots by Paw Paw

Yagisan's Recommended Structural Mods
Workshop Rearranged
G2M - Workshop
Thematic and Practical
Kraggles Structures

Yagisan's Recommended Decoration Mods
CREAtive Clutter
Do It Yourshelf
Modular Kitchen
CREAtive Gardens
Unicorn Farts and Godrays - Stained Glass Workshop Mod
Old World Radio
Lore Friendly Posters
Solar Panels

Yagisan's Suggested Creation Club Items
Home Decor Workshop Pack (cceejfo4001-decorationpack.esl)
Arcade Workshop Pack (ccbgsfo4045-advarccab.esl)
Coffee and Donuts Workshop Pack (ccfsvfo4003-slocum.esl)
Nuka-Cola Collector Workshop Pack (cceejfo4002-nuka.esl)

Yagisan's Mandatory Epic City Plans
Sim Settlements City Plans - Lakeside Cabin Brewery by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Northwest Pylon Mines by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Lakeside Pumpstation Fishery by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Vault 111 Medical Centre by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Fallen Tree Valley Molerat Ranch by Yagisan and UniversalLibrary
Sim Settlements City Plans - Mass Fusion Containment Shed Nuclear Reprocessing by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Roadside Pines Motel Trading Post by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Natick Power Substation Industrial Park by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Red Rocket Natick Outpost by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Red Rocket Fort Hagen Outpost by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - Nu Cafe Ola Rest Stop by Yagisan
Sim Settlements City Plans - The Overlook Observatory by Yagisan

Yagisan's Mandatory Epic Life Changing Mods
Yagisan's Better Caravans

Click to expand...

I was going to bust on you for not having CREAtive Gardens in there but now I see it.
Unicorn Farts and Godrays - Stained Glass Workshop Mod, oh yeah!

RayBo said:

That is the "Diamond Power" plot from Junk Town.

Click to expand...

hehe I use that one a lot to lol
im gonna try and get some more natural looking plots out there and some blood and guts

RayBo said:

I was going to bust on you for not having CREAtive Gardens in there but now I see it.
Unicorn Farts and Godrays - Stained Glass Workshop Mod, oh yeah!

Click to expand...

Just because I don't use them in city plans, doesn't mean I don't play with them. They are great for level 3 decoration.

Ask, and the floodgates shall open...excuse me while I drown... *glug* *glug* *glug*

Thank you all.

Given I'm running the non-DLC basic FO4 at present, I will keep the ones requiring DLC for future consideration. It will happen - just not right now. There's plenty to explore right here.

Junk Town, myohmy...

@RayBo I've likely already killed this game. Something I downloaded early, that used old programming practices. (Including ScrapEverything, oh well!) If the game splats itself, I'll start yet again without whining about it. Not too much anyways....

I give any author props for balls. I'm not gonna go outta my way to be nasty about issues, ever. I fully accept that any modding is entirely at my risk. It is good to know that "best practices" change too - it will help to deal with any "issues" that might crop up from the unsanitary mod-installation that I have done prior.

Basically my current game is/was my "go through mods and see what breaks it irreparably" game. I never expected to get this far into the main storyline. SimSettlements has given me an opportunity that I never thought would happen game-wise, because of frustration at the barebones settlement play.

IDEK's Logistics Station. So I didn't need to spend perk points on Charisma build and the Local Leader stuff after all, for supply lines. Better yet, it comes with an effective mod that I was thinking of putting together: the Settlement Creation Kit. Though mine was gonna be a shipment, sold by Carla and Lucas at a ruinous price...

I will keep this one not-yet-enabled until I've read through it properly. From what I can see, it oughta work well with vanilla supply lines.

MY "essentials":
Settlement building (SS addons already mentioned)
DDP AIO Standalone
Homemaker

Other none settlement building related.
Eli's armour compendium.
We Are The Minutemen (if you like playing MM playthroughs)
Heather Casdin (if you want a good companion)
Ellen the Cartographer (if you want a good companion)
Worsin's Immersive Power Armor Garage (WIPAG) (for PA fans)

None of these require any of the official DLSc but some may
need patched to be compatible with other mods.

Mod without which you can go crazy: Faster Terminal Displays

If you like settlement building in general apart from SS or want to supplement your SS builds, I keep a list of the best settlement building mods. I've got to update it though as a few newer releases (already mentioned in this thread) haven't made it on there yet.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/articles/384

Here's my modlist! I tried to export to a csv but MO2 has some bugs to export so I just pasted all the screenshots into one.

And yeah, ocd got me to arrange all my mods into categories into wich I think it's correct... At least it's much more organized now!

update: And one more, CREative garden, wich I discovered thanks to this thread! How I missed that one??

Well I finally stopped being lazy and updated my settlement building mod guide.

Odd, all these fantastic lists and am I the only one who thinks CWSS is a staple? I mean.....bathing? Oh, never mind hahaha.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/14326

Demanding, I will study your list when I get home. I hadn’t seen it before. Wow that is another great list.

Whisper, this is turning into a gold mine of a thread. Thank you for starting it.

I am definitely going to be trying some of the suggestions here!

I think that with this lot, I'm going to become an OCD settlement builder. O_O This stuff looks freaking fantastic.

Damn glad I started the thread. (Bathing. Why was basic sanitation not included...?)

RayBo said:

Odd, all these fantastic lists and am I the only one who thinks CWSS is a staple? I mean.....bathing? Oh, never mind hahaha.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/14326

Demanding, I will study your list when I get home. I hadn’t seen it before. Wow that is another great list.

Whisper, this is turning into a gold mine of a thread. Thank you for starting it.

I am definitely going to be trying some of the suggestions here!

Click to expand...

I like CWSS because the immersion it adds. Alone, not so much, but combined with GET DIRTY (take a bath) it's great! And I can take a sh** on the toilet too, while reading a magazine! lol