Nos' Load Order

Alright, in the hopes of helping some folks out who may not be able to get one running, here's where I'm gonna post my load order. I'll update it periodically, but likely as edits to this same post.

I'll add a note to the RR file entry later.

A few notes beforehand:

As I've stated before, I do not run FWE, FOOK/FOOK2, Project Beauty, or a great deal of other mods. My load order is fairly Spartan, truth be told, because first and foremost I go for reliability, and a great many mods out there simply can't turn that in.

I do have MMM RC5, Real Injuries, and Arwen's Realism Tweaks downloaded and in my data folder, but they have not, as yet, been activated. MMM has been a perpetual thorn in my side whenever I've tried to use it, and Arwen's tweaks and Real Injuries are complete unknowns to me, so I've been waiting to turn those three on until I can devote the time needed to figure out where they need to go.

Also, I do not use FO3Edit's masterupdate. At all. Ever. I recommend you do not, either. If a mod needs to be a master, its author should make it one, plain and simple. Masterupdate will cause problems with the RR series of mods. This is not conjecture or bias on my part, it is documented and repeatable and took several of us a bit of time to track down the exact cause.

FO3Edit has many useful features, that just ain't one of them.

Okay, ready? Here we go...


Fallout3.esm
Lings.esm
CRAFT.esm
CALIBR.esm
LingsFinerThings.esm
Enhanced Weather - Rain and Snow.esm
20th Century Weapons.esm
RRCompanionVault.esm
Nos' RR Companions.esm
RR Vault 1 Alternate Guards.esm
Nos' Special Equipment.esm
Nos' Special Companions.esm
MoreMapMarkers.esp
ClearSkies_v2.esp
Enhanced Weather - Rain and Snow in Fallout.esp
Enhanced Weather - Weather Sounds in Interiors.esp
Enhanced Weather - Sneak Bonus during Storms.esp
RR Vanilla Companion Integration.esp
RRWastelandPosters.esp
RR No Vault 1 Protectrons.esp
RR Vault 1 No Automatic Doors.esp
RRV1 Bedroom Redecorated.esp
RR Companion Vault 20thCW Supply.esp
CRAFT - Activation Perk.esp
CALIBR Ammo Schematics - CRAFT.esp
Mannequin.esp
UPP - Pack 1.esp
UPP - Pack 2.esp
UPP - Quest Perks.esp
UPP - Original Perks.esp
UPP - Experience Perks.esp
Combat Style Perks.esp
Unisex Black Widow and Ladykiller.esp
2nd-to-1st.esp
Alternate Start - Roleplayers.esp
AS-R CALIBR Patch ONLY.esp
sunglassescollection.esp
kikaiEquipment.esp
MicroBikini_recolour.esp
CSwimsuit_and_Harness_recolor.esp
wasteland_mix1F.esp
CrossRepairWeapons.esp
CrossRepairArmor.esp
LJD_ENCLAVE ENABLED MOIRA BROWN.esp
Defender .600.esp
LED pipboy light extended.esp
M1911s CALIBR Compatible.esp
Cat Outfit Only.esp
Nos' Caravan Mod.esp
OutFits.esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (TEST Container).esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (Vendor).esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (NPC_Settler).esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (Raider).esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (RivetCity).esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (Brotherhood_Outcast).esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (SuperMutant).esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (Vault 101).esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (Chinese Ghoul).esp
20th Century v4 ALIVE (Talon_Regulator).esp
20th Century Weapons Selectors.esp
LingsFinerThings.esp
LingsPrettyThings.esp
TUPAM.esp
CALIBR Ammo Loot 20thCW.esp
Owned!.esp
KillableKidsNormalHealthOptional.esp
The Groovatron.esp

Total active plugins: 68
Total plugins: 112

As you can see, most of the items in my data directory are not active. I didn't kill a bunch of mods to make my load order look better, that's the one I actually play on. The thing to keep in mind is MMM has a good dozen files in it, Arwen's is another one, and Real Injuries has seven by the look of it. Also figure in that I'm a predominantly lazy person, and for convenience sake, I keep in my data directory the editable esp versions of the plugins that eventually become the RR Companions Vault, my companions pack, alternate guards, and a few others. There's also Lox's Jessi and Kelsey, who I keep around for some occasional testing, but do not normally have active in my game.

There are also several unuploaded mods in my list. Nos' Special Companions is a test-bed, where I play with things like custom races, special scripts, and the custom bodies that are in the works for the main companions pack. Nos' Special Equipment is a collection of stuff I've scavenged mostly from this Japanese mod database I know about. I can't read a word one of Japanese, so I just stuffed the items into a new plugin, rather than try to deal with the others. I've got no rights to upload any of it, and wouldn't even know where to begin looking to ask permission, so don't even ask me.

Others are things for my personal game - like "Nos' Caravan Mod" and "Unisex Black Widow and Ladykiller" that there are a dozen other mods out there just like. I just find it easier to run up simple plugins myself, rather than download someone else's... less chance of a dirty mod, that way.

Even though you'll see it in the tutorial screenshots, AP is not active in this load order. I'm not trying to pretend I'm not a perv, but I don't normally run AP. I had updated it just before I started on the tutorial, and forgot I had left it active for testing. The new "fixes" didn't, so I turned it back off this morning. May tinker with it some more in the future, but it's not a priority by any means.

In general, the non RR masterfiles you see are fairly easy to get along with. The two Ling's masters, CRAFT, CALIBR, and 20thCW don't argue amongst themselves, and generally go wherever with little complaint. I usually keep CRAFT on top, followed by CALIBR, but I recently updated Ling's Coiffure, which included the new Ling's.esm, the documentation for which wanted it on top of the stack. I tried it there, and everything still works, so I called it good.

Enhanced Weather generally plays fine wherever. Weather mods - so long as you only run the one - very rarely conflict with non-weather mods.

The RR master files don't fight much with the others, but I keep them together for simplicity. RRCompanionVault.esm has to come first in the stack. After that comes my companions pack, as it is a master for the alternate guards and special companions files.

Your RR companions will need to follow a similar progression; coming after RRCompanionVault.esm, but before any other files that may be dependent on it. Unless you use it as a master, as well, your companion pack will not interfere with mine in any way, and they two should not ever conflict.

Other RR masters you don't see - things like the RRGuards, and 5More plugins should come directly after RRCompanionVault.esm, but before things like my companions pack. The three plugins play fine together in any order, and do not conflict amongst themselves.

Moving to esps, again, weather mods are usually best near the top. They, like their masters, tend not to conflict often, but it's best to make the weather changes early, so anything that may modify them later on can do so with a minimum of fuss. I should also note that though I have it in with them, Clear Skies is not technically a weather mod - it simply removes the icky green tint from everything.

Moremapmarkers doesn't conflict with anything so far as I know. I just shove it at the top to keep it out of my way when looking for something that is load order dependent further down.

Next we've got the RR plugins. Again, exact order doesn't really matter. If they work where I drug them the first time, I tend not to mess with it further. Remember though, if you use Refurbished, it should probably be high in your plugin list, so that plugins like the non-automatic doors, no protectrons, and posters can all do their overwriting of Refurbished's changes. Though I'll confess I'm not an expert on the interactions, as I turn on Refurbished only when I made a major change to the vault, and need to see if I broke anything.

Next we've got CRAFT and CRAFT ammo schematics. The schematics use CRAFT, and so should come after, but beyond that CRAFT load order only becomes an issue if you run something else that modifies the work bench - which is ill-advised, as the work benches are a one or the other proposition, and don't accept multiple changes at once.

Mannequin doesn't conflict with anything. it's there in the order because that's where I dropped it to keep it out of my way.

After that we have my block of perk mods. These are sensitive to load order only insofar as their relation to someone else that modifies the same perks. UPP for example adds new perks, but also modifies a few vanilla ones as I recall, so you can see my unisex Black Widow and Ladykiller mod, as well as 2nd-to-1st loaded later, to overwrite again any changes UPP may have made to normal perks. Combat Perks only adds new ones, and doesn't modify anything - that's just where it ended up.

I like Alternate Start and its CALIBR patch to load after the perk mods, in case it modifies any. Though this one will likely be getting the axe when I get the V1 Alternate Start mod going.

After that we move into items. These are new items and not modifications to other items, so they're not strictly speaking load order sensitive. Bear in mind however that if two mods add an item to the same container or room, you oftentimes only get the one that loads last.

I've carefully culled most of these from my list, over the months.

Below that, you see the order gets kind of messy. This is mostly apathy on my part. The mods therein don't seem to care where they go, so I left them where they ended up. If a problem arises, I tinker. If not, I don't fix what ain't broke.

Once you hit the 20th Century Weapons ALIVE plugins, I start to care again. ALIVE modifies the leveled lists and loot for the indicated groups. Consequently, these need to be down towards the bottom of your list, where they'll overwrite any earlier changes. MMM can conflict heavily here, as it also modifies the loot of groups like Raiders. Whichever you load last generally wins. Since I like neat guns better than salamander shit or whatever that useless mess MMM adds are, 20thCW gets the nod in my load order.

After that you get Ling's Finer Things and Ling's Pretty Things, as they both need to come after another other mods that make similar changes, for best effect. My cravan mod actually conflicts with Ling's Pretty Things - they both modify caravan guards. But by loading LPT after my caravan mod, it wins out and make the cosmetic changes to the guards, while my mod remains in effect and keep the traders and their brahmin (not modified by LPT) essential.

CALIBR loot modifies several other level lists and loot tables, so I want it loading as low as possible - overwriting even ALIVE.

Owned! modifies a great many buildings in the wasteland, so we want it low to overwrite as much as possible. Interestingly enough, Owned! is compatible with item mods. A couple of the clothing mods above put their item boxes in Dukov's place, but because Owned! modifies only the bar on the ground floor, the two do not conflict.

After Owned! we have Killablekids, which I'll confess I simply forgot about, and didn't move after installation. Again: no problem, I don't mess with it.

The last mod to load in my list is the Groovatron. It gets this coveted position because at the bottom, it overwrites all other animation mods, which seems to keep it working best.

Well, there you have it. Not pretty, not OCD organized, but it works.

A few other things to keep in mind, as you try to determine your own load order:

1) Some mods simply do not play well together. Any huge, overarching mod is a likely culprit for this. FOOK2 is the biggest offender in the universe in this regard, and seems to conflict with almost everything. FWE and MMM are also bad about this. There are supposedly ways to get the three working without selling your soul to Cthulu, but I have no idea how, so don't ask.

2) As an ancillary to point 1, sometimes it is simpler by far to simply decide which of two conflicting plugins you like better. I had a mod downloaded once that overhauled the Tenpenny suite. Trouble was, it also removed the floor of the Museum of Technology. Needless to say, it went away - the overhaul wasn't that nice. Your decisions may not be so easy, but you can usually tell which is the better or more useful mod with relative ease.

3) Once you get a working load order, leave it the hell alone. Hexadecimal objectIDs are assigned by Fallout 3 based on a mod's place in the load order. This why you have to know where your mod sits in the order to use an additem command successfully. Moving mods around can mess with this ID, and cause problems, even crashing to desktop events.

I seriously doubt I'm going to really help anyone out with this, but here it is all the same. Here's hoping you find this at least somewhat useful.