How to Sweep Everything under Bethesda's Fallout Rug

Fallout 4

• Modding Linked's The Midnight Ride Fallout 4 Guide: I don't care if you have your cute little load order; I strongly recommend you start from scratch and follow a guide put together by people with actual engine-level knowledge. For most people, I suggest you simply use Wabbajack, as it automates the majority of the process for you. Otherwise, if you prefer to understand what exactly each mod does and why the guide wants you to install it, you are more than welcome to follow the guide step by step. The Midnight Ride guide pretty much leaves you with a stable Fallout 4 setup with enhancements. From here, you can simply enjoy the game as is, or use it as a foundation for adding your own favorite mods.

• Sim Settlements 2: The first version of this mod immediately addresses the Settlement gameplay loop by allowing players to place zoned platforms that provide housing, jobs, and commerce for the settlement. It is largely hands-off once you place the platforms and you can be off doing whatever else you want to do. It offers varying degrees of difficulty, from just requiring an ASAM Sensor (a device with a collection of building blueprints), or requiring settler needs to be met and specific materials before you can expand. If you don't want to deal with hand-placing platforms, a city plan system also exists, allowing you to save your own "city" layout, or load a city plan you downloaded with optimal layouts. The sequel is more of an overhaul that adds many needed quality-of-life features for the Settlement system, a large story chain that introduces the player to the main and new functions, and an extensive amount of content that is built around the new HQ system. Both versions of Sim Settlements are great if you simply want to focus on sandbox. SS2 lets you bypass the introductory quests allowing you to simply skip straight to the HQ quests.
• America Rising 2]: America Rising 2 is actually a remake to the original mod. The story re-introduces the Enclave as an alternative; and humanized, faction the player can join. For the most part, it puts its foot down when it comes down to making choices. While the story is okay, you will mostly enjoy the new content it offers anyway.
• Galac Tac Series Part One/Part Two: This is probably my favorite alternative main quest mod because it adds a great deal of "tacticool" content and a badass cast of characters. You need both parts of the Galac-Tac series since the second part fixes things in the first part.
• If you absolutely want a crazy-ass Fallout 4 main quest experience, might I suggest the Thuggyverse series? Just grab these mods and their dependencies. The less I say about it all, the better. There is simply so much to cover when it comes to this series of mods.
• Fusion City Rising
• Outcasts And Remnants
• Project Valkyrie
• Depravity
• Diary of a Madman
• Settler & Companion Dialogue Overhaul

Fallout 3

• The Best of Times Guide: Unfortunately, The Best of Times Guide does not have a Wabbajack ready to go. It requires tons of hands-on installation and setup to get going, but following the guide is the definitive method of ensuring a working TTW installation ready to play.
• Wasteland Survival Guide: This guide provides optimizations and additional content for both FO3 and FNV sides.

• True Open World DC: This mod completely removes the main quest and allows for Fallout 3 to truly shine as a sandbox. The only downside is that it will be incompatible with mods that rely on the main quest such as Rebuild the Capital.
• Claim the Mojave (and the Capital): Rebuild the Capital is post-game content for Broken Steel and adds an ambitious amount of content. Claim the Capital is a stripped down version of RtC, but allows you to immediately begin claiming or allying yourself with locations as soon as you begin exploring the Capital Wasteland.
  • Rebuild the Capital: Honestly, Claim the Capital is somewhat underwhelming if you've already been exposed to what RtC adds. RtC is the only reason I will slog through the main quest, because beating Broken Steel is required in order to begin the Rebuild the Capital quest.