New Vegas mods

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

If I remember it right JSawyer's Logan's Loophole trait also caps the max level to right before the leveled lists get bloated.

 

[Trashos]

If I remember it right JSawyer's Logan's Loophole trait also caps the max level to right before the leveled lists get bloated.

The vanilla game (+dlc) has a maximum level of 50, and Logan's Loophole caps you at lvl30.

JSawyer has a maximum level of 35, and Logan's Loophole caps you at lvl21.

 

[Risewild]

I could not disagree more with the above post. JSU feels like an improved JS, ie what JS would have been if Sawyer had put more work into it (I do respect Sawyer a lot for putting work in and releasing JS, do not get me wrong, JS was the game changer).

It is true that JSU takes some liberties on top of JS. In my view, they are 100% in the spirit of JS. You can read JSU's changelog, but to cut a long story short, the same modder has another mod that rebalances the game's economy to make it less generous (and therefore, you actually have to make decisions instead of easily buying everything). This should tell you all about his attitude.

In short, the game changer was JS. It turned New Vegas into a serious game, and you will not go wrong with it, if that is what you are looking for. JSU has more work into it, less bugs, and is generally a lot more polished, made by someone who has obviously played and loves the game a lot. JSU is better maintained, has much fewer compatibility issues with other mods, and it is just what FONV should have been from the very start, afaic.

I do have some minor disagreements with Pushthewinbutton's decisions (mostly what he did not do, not what he did, eg I wanted the level cap to go back down to 30, not 35), but JSU is such a good experience, that who cares.

To each it's own. It's a matter of preferences, so if people prefer JSU it's their own right.

But I will have to try and counter the part about about JSU being FNV should have been from the start. Because JS Mod makes the game harder on purpose.

I already mentioned the change of the Implant GRX from 2 and 3 to 3 and 5 uses, that allows a player to have the same amount of uses in one perk in JSU as it would have with two perks in JS Mod and the second rank allows almost twice the uses per day in JSU as it would in JS Mod. Once again, Implant GRX is quite a OP ability, allowing almost the twice uses of it already makes the game easier.

I will just go through the differences in the change log and point out why some already change the intention and difficulty of the original mod:
JSU alters the effects of consumables from JS Mod. It changes the effects of those consumables to a script as to "correct an oversight", this "oversight" is that in FNV consumables have their benefits increase with the character's skills (survival for food and medicine for healing consumables), but the game also increases the negatives from consuming these things with higher character skills. So when you eat something that has a negative and a positive effect, both those effects will be increased when your character's related skill increases too. At first glance, this seems to be an oversight, but it makes sense it wasn't "fixed" in JS Mod, because it makes the game harder, and it makes using consumables have drawback that are proportional to the benefits (both increase with the skills). Removing the increase of penalties with skill level makes using consumables way more beneficial in JSU compared to JS Mod. It really changes the difficulty already (specially in Hardcore mode, since the preferred way of healing in that mode is using food items).

Changing the Stimpak Sickness duration from 120s to 30s... That's reducing a penalty's duration by 4 times... 4 bloody times! That means that you can use Super Stimpaks and only have to wait 30 seconds to lose the STR and AGL penalties instead of 2 minutes... Another "fix" that alters the balance of JS Mod to make it way easier.

Changed the Homemade and Expired Stimpaks use when having the Fast Metabolism perk (so it works like the other Stimpak versions). Again, making the change to how these two stimpak versions work with the perk seems logical, after all the "good" versions of the stims work that way, why would the weaker versions not work like that too? The answer is once more... Balance. JS Mod made these weaker versions work like this with that perk because they are supposed to be weaker and not depended on for tough situations. By making them have a stronger healing effect instead of said effect last longer is defeating the purpose from the original mod. It's turning a healing item that is supposed to be weak and not good for hard battles into a somehow useful item for those same hard battles (20% more healing in shorter time is way more useful than 20% less healing but the healing effect lasting 20% longer). Expired and Homemade Stims are supposed to be used after a battle, not to be relied on in the heat of a tough situation, but that simple "fix" already remove the intention and lowers the difficulty of the original mod.

Adds recipes for all raw meat. Fair enough, makes sense. Although it also reduces the difficulty of the original mod by a tiny bit. Because now the player has more options for turning consumables into better ones.

Adds armor repair kits that can also be crafted. Fair enough, makes sense since the game has weapon repair kits. Also helps destroy more the already bad economy in FNV. Not having armor repair kits forces the player to have to spend other equivalent armors to repair the ones they use, pay vendors to repair them or use the Jury Rigging perk (a level 14 perk that requires 90 repair skill) that allows to repair their armors with any armor of the same category. Without the Jury Rigging perk, some armors are impossible to repair unless the player uses caps, and since the price of repairs is dependent on the condition needed to be repaired and the price of the armor, it makes the player have to spend quite a few caps depending on the body armor/headgear/face gear combination that needs to be repaired (the character can equip up to three pieces of armor at the same time, depending on the type of slot that armor takes, body, head, face, full face). So repairing your armors is usually more expensive than repairing your weapons (unless you play sneaky sniper, since you will use your weapons a lot more than you will be getting hit).
This armor repair kit also repairs all the armors worn at that time, which means it can be exploited by the payer equipping several pieces of armor at once and get them all repaired at once and quite cheap (for example, the character is equipped with a body armor and a full head helmet, the body armor needs repairs but the helmet doesn't, so the player can equip an open faced helmet and a mask like the Rebreather and use the repair kit, voilá, it repaired all of the three at once and at a super cheap price).
This addition might make sense, since there are weapon repair kits, but it unbalances the game and makes it much easier.

Added Ice Cold Sunset Sarsaparilla, which makes the drink have a more powerful healing effect. Makes it easier.

It marginally increases the weight of some items (usually 0 to 0.2, 0 to 0.5, 0.2 to 0.25 or 0.5, etc.) which increases the difficulty, but then it also decreases the weight of other stuff by quite not marginally (Grilled Mantis weight decreases from 1 to 0.4, other stuff from 1 to 0.5, from 1 to 0.25, etc.). In the end it all cancels each other out so it end up pretty much the same.

It reduced the healing effects of drinks like Nuka Cola varieties and Sunset Sarsaparilla, but if flagged them as food items, so now survival skill will affect them, and if you have a high skill, they will end up healing more than the flat value they had before (with survival of 40/50 they are already healing the same as the flat value and with max survival skill they will be healing almost twice as much). This is worse with the Sarsaparilla, which he only nerfed the duration of the healing effect, from 12 seconds to 10 seconds, so in the base mod we would heal 12 HP over 12 seconds and in the JSU you will heal 10 HP over 10s, but that is only if you have a survival skill lower than 30. With only a survival skill of 30 you already have double healing for just 2 seconds less (you heal 20HP in 10s instead of 12HP in 12s) and with max Survival skill this drink is healing almost 5x more but for only 2 less seconds (you will be healing 50HP in 10s against the 12HP healed in 12s from the base mod). Making the game easier once again.

Added a small amount of DR to all light armors. Now they reduce more damage taken (I don't know how much is a small amount, so it can be anything from 1 to 10 or more). Game is easier.

Added armor effects to a range of armor and clothing. The reasoning for this change is because the original mod added some effects to raider and mercenary armor. But the reason it added those effects in the first place was to boost those enemies a bit since they are usually quite weak. Adding bonuses to a range of other armor and clothing will usually only be useful for the player, because then they can benefit more from those bonuses (specially since the PC has access to perks while the enemies don't). This makes the game easier.

Replaced AGL reductions on apparel with Sneak reductions. The reasoning was that the base mod did this for a few armors, so it's "finishing what was started", except it made sense for those armors to have Sneak penalty, but not all of them. AGL penalty makes the game harder in general than Sneak penalty (AGL affects AP. Also affects the speed of reloading, holster and drawing a weapon).

This is already an enormous wall of text and I didn't even reached half of it. So I will cut it short for the sake of everyone's sanity's (mine included). I will just mention a few general things and be done with it.

It also made the game easier by adding new recipes, by allowing to craft/cook using more item varieties, by allowing some items to not be consumed while crafting using them. Added more items that can be used to repair some weapons (whet stones can repair bladed weapons now) Added several weapons to enemies but some of these weapons are quite valuable and they are in the hands of raiders that are easy to dispatch and get the loot, making it easier to increase your caps just by easily killing these enemies. Edited some weapons in a way that make the game easier (just check the weapons section almost all the points are about decreasing ammo used by half or increased damage or decreasing weapon weight, sometimes by half.), altered the XP reward values to the nearest 25 ending up giving more XP in the end, just, and I quote "to give nicer figures", added a few early game traders (which makes the game easier), and many other stuff.

I will mention that the mod does have several changes that make the game harder:
It reduces by half the healing of the items provided by the Them's Good Eatin' perk (Thin red paste, Thick red paste and Black blood sausage) not affected by the original mod (the original edits the Blood Sausage). It also nerfed the Gecko steak. Made it so placed Stimpaks can be the expired version (although it boosted these versions as mentioned before). Altered the bobby pins and lockpick skill values so bobby pins break easier and lockpicking is a bit harder (but reduced the time in between hacking attempts from 10s to 2s) and other stuff.

In the end, JSU makes the game much easier than JS Mod, it really doesn't feel the same vision for FNV as the original mod. I could go on and on about more changes but this already took too much time to write and no one will read even half of this post anyway...

 

[Red Hexapus]

If I remember it right JSawyer's Logan's Loophole trait also caps the max level to right before the leveled lists get bloated.

Yeah, it is capped at 21 just as the age in the "Logan's Run" novel, as opposed to 30 from the movie (and the vanilla game).

 

[Trashos]

Spoiler

I could not disagree more with the above post. JSU feels like an improved JS, ie what JS would have been if Sawyer had put more work into it (I do respect Sawyer a lot for putting work in and releasing JS, do not get me wrong, JS was the game changer).

It is true that JSU takes some liberties on top of JS. In my view, they are 100% in the spirit of JS. You can read JSU's changelog, but to cut a long story short, the same modder has another mod that rebalances the game's economy to make it less generous (and therefore, you actually have to make decisions instead of easily buying everything). This should tell you all about his attitude.

In short, the game changer was JS. It turned New Vegas into a serious game, and you will not go wrong with it, if that is what you are looking for. JSU has more work into it, less bugs, and is generally a lot more polished, made by someone who has obviously played and loves the game a lot. JSU is better maintained, has much fewer compatibility issues with other mods, and it is just what FONV should have been from the very start, afaic.

I do have some minor disagreements with Pushthewinbutton's decisions (mostly what he did not do, not what he did, eg I wanted the level cap to go back down to 30, not 35), but JSU is such a good experience, that who cares.

To each it's own. It's a matter of preferences, so if people prefer JSU it's their own right.

But I will have to try and counter the part about about JSU being FNV should have been from the start. Because JS Mod makes the game harder on purpose.

I already mentioned the change of the Implant GRX from 2 and 3 to 3 and 5 uses, that allows a player to have the same amount of uses in one perk in JSU as it would have with two perks in JS Mod and the second rank allows almost twice the uses per day in JSU as it would in JS Mod. Once again, Implant GRX is quite a OP ability, allowing almost the twice uses of it already makes the game easier.

I will just go through the differences in the change log and point out why some already change the intention and difficulty of the original mod:
JSU alters the effects of consumables from JS Mod. It changes the effects of those consumables to a script as to "correct an oversight", this "oversight" is that in FNV consumables have their benefits increase with the character's skills (survival for food and medicine for healing consumables), but the game also increases the negatives from consuming these things with higher character skills. So when you eat something that has a negative and a positive effect, both those effects will be increased when your character's related skill increases too. At first glance, this seems to be an oversight, but it makes sense it wasn't "fixed" in JS Mod, because it makes the game harder, and it makes using consumables have drawback that are proportional to the benefits (both increase with the skills). Removing the increase of penalties with skill level makes using consumables way more beneficial in JSU compared to JS Mod. It really changes the difficulty already (specially in Hardcore mode, since the preferred way of healing in that mode is using food items).

Changing the Stimpak Sickness duration from 120s to 30s... That's reducing a penalty's duration by 4 times... 4 bloody times! That means that you can use Super Stimpaks and only have to wait 30 seconds to lose the STR and AGL penalties instead of 2 minutes... Another "fix" that alters the balance of JS Mod to make it way easier.

Changed the Homemade and Expired Stimpaks use when having the Fast Metabolism perk (so it works like the other Stimpak versions). Again, making the change to how these two stimpak versions work with the perk seems logical, after all the "good" versions of the stims work that way, why would the weaker versions not work like that too? The answer is once more... Balance. JS Mod made these weaker versions work like this with that perk because they are supposed to be weaker and not depended on for tough situations. By making them have a stronger healing effect instead of said effect last longer is defeating the purpose from the original mod. It's turning a healing item that is supposed to be weak and not good for hard battles into a somehow useful item for those same hard battles (20% more healing in shorter time is way more useful than 20% less healing but the healing effect lasting 20% longer). Expired and Homemade Stims are supposed to be used after a battle, not to be relied on in the heat of a tough situation, but that simple "fix" already remove the intention and lowers the difficulty of the original mod.

Adds recipes for all raw meat. Fair enough, makes sense. Although it also reduces the difficulty of the original mod by a tiny bit. Because now the player has more options for turning consumables into better ones.

Adds armor repair kits that can also be crafted. Fair enough, makes sense since the game has weapon repair kits. Also helps destroy more the already bad economy in FNV. Not having armor repair kits forces the player to have to spend other equivalent armors to repair the ones they use, pay vendors to repair them or use the Jury Rigging perk (a level 14 perk that requires 90 repair skill) that allows to repair their armors with any armor of the same category. Without the Jury Rigging perk, some armors are impossible to repair unless the player uses caps, and since the price of repairs is dependent on the condition needed to be repaired and the price of the armor, it makes the player have to spend quite a few caps depending on the body armor/headgear/face gear combination that needs to be repaired (the character can equip up to three pieces of armor at the same time, depending on the type of slot that armor takes, body, head, face, full face). So repairing your armors is usually more expensive than repairing your weapons (unless you play sneaky sniper, since you will use your weapons a lot more than you will be getting hit).
This armor repair kit also repairs all the armors worn at that time, which means it can be exploited by the payer equipping several pieces of armor at once and get them all repaired at once and quite cheap (for example, the character is equipped with a body armor and a full head helmet, the body armor needs repairs but the helmet doesn't, so the player can equip an open faced helmet and a mask like the Rebreather and use the repair kit, voilá, it repaired all of the three at once and at a super cheap price).
This addition might make sense, since there are weapon repair kits, but it unbalances the game and makes it much easier.

Added Ice Cold Sunset Sarsaparilla, which makes the drink have a more powerful healing effect. Makes it easier.

It marginally increases the weight of some items (usually 0 to 0.2, 0 to 0.5, 0.2 to 0.25 or 0.5, etc.) which increases the difficulty, but then it also decreases the weight of other stuff by quite not marginally (Grilled Mantis weight decreases from 1 to 0.4, other stuff from 1 to 0.5, from 1 to 0.25, etc.). In the end it all cancels each other out so it end up pretty much the same.

It reduced the healing effects of drinks like Nuka Cola varieties and Sunset Sarsaparilla, but if flagged them as food items, so now survival skill will affect them, and if you have a high skill, they will end up healing more than the flat value they had before (with survival of 40/50 they are already healing the same as the flat value and with max survival skill they will be healing almost twice as much). This is worse with the Sarsaparilla, which he only nerfed the duration of the healing effect, from 12 seconds to 10 seconds, so in the base mod we would heal 12 HP during 12 seconds and in the JSU you will heal 10 HP during 10s, but that is only if you have a survival skill lover than 30. With only a survival skill of 30 you already have double healing for just 2 seconds less (you heal 20HP in 10s instead of 12HP in 12s) and with max Survival skill this drink is healing almost 5x more but for only 2 less seconds (you will be healing 50HP in 10s against the 12HP healed in 12s from the base mod). Making the game easier once again.

Added a small amount of DR to all light armors. Now they reduce more damage taken (I don't know how much is a small amount, so it can be anything from 1 to 10 or more). Game is easier.

Added armor effects to a range of armor and clothing. The reasoning for this change is because the original mod added some effects to raider and mercenary armor. But the reason it added those effects in the first place was to boost those enemies a bit since they are usually quite weak. Adding bonuses to a range of other armor and clothing will usually only be useful for the player, because then they can benefit more from those bonuses (specially since the PC has access to perks while the enemies don't). This makes the game easier.

Replaced AGL reductions on apparel with Sneak reductions. The reasoning was that the base mod did this for a few armors, so it's "finishing what was started", except it made sense for those armors to have Sneak penalty, but not all of them. AGL penalty makes the game harder in general than Sneak penalty (AGL affects AP. Also affects the speed of reloading, holster and drawing a weapon).

This is already an enormous wall of text and I didn't even reached half of it. So I will cut it short for the sake of everyone's sanity's (mine included). I will just mention a few general things and be done with it.

It also made the game easier by adding new recipes, by allowing to craft/cook using more item varieties, by allowing some items to not be consumed while crafting using them. Added more items that can be used to repair some weapons (whet stones can repair bladed weapons now) Added several weapons to enemies but some of these weapons are quite valuable and they are in the hands of raiders that are easy to dispatch and get the loot, making it easier to increase your caps just by easily killing these enemies. Edited some weapons in a way that make the game easier (just check the weapons section almost all the points are about decreasing ammo used by half or increased damage or decreasing weapon weight, sometimes by half.), altered the XP reward values to the nearest 25 ending up giving more XP in the end, just, and I quote "to give nicer figures", added a few early game traders (which makes the game easier), and many other stuff.

I will mention that the mod does have several changes that make the game harder:
It reduces by half the healing of the items provided by the Them's Good Eatin' perk (Thin red paste, Thick red paste and Black blood sausage) not affected by the original mod (the original edits the Blood Sausage). It also nerfed the Gecko steak. Made it so placed Stimpaks can be the expired version (although it boosted these versions as mentioned before). Altered the bobby pins and lockpick skill values so bobby pins break easier and lockpicking is a bit harder (but reduced the time in between hacking attempts from 10s to 2s) and other stuff.

In the end, JSU makes the game much easier than JS Mod, it really doesn't feel the same vision for FNV as the original mod. I could go on and on about more changes but this already took too much time to write and no one will ever read even half of this post anyway...

No, JSU is generally not easier than JS. I would even say that it is slightly harder (but, at the same time, makes a bit more sense), but it has been years since I migrated from JS to JSU, so I would not be able to defend the claim fully. In short, it has both changes that make the game slightly harder (some XP rewards have been reworked IIRC, some weights have been reworked, reduced speed when going backwards was added etc), and changes that make the game slightly easier.

The above changes should be defended by PWTB himself, but I can tell you how *I* see them.

- Implant GRX: The changes you mention look good to me. Dead Money aside, Implant GRX is strictly inferior to the Turbo chem, therefore it needed a boost. Implant GRX is all about speed, but you have to lose time bringing the pipboy up every time you want to use it, which beats the purpose, while Turbo can be hotkeyed and consumed at will. I support this change 100%.

- Stimpak sickness duration. I do not use stimpaks (and I do not understand why anyone playing hardcore mode would), but the change looks convenient honestly. The point of the penalty is to make the fight harder, there is no deep gameplay point in keeping the penalty after the fight is over. Just forces you to wait for it to go away, which is bad gameplay.

- Fast metabolism: Again, I do not use stimpaks. However, Fast Metabolism is an exceptionally weak perk, so I will argue that PWTB needs to take steps to strengthen it even further. Therefore, I support the changes mentioned.

- Recipes for all raw meat: That was definitely one of Sawyer's goals. He has said so himself in public.

- Armor repair kits. They are fine. New Vegas' economy is already totally broken, since you can have infinite money with very little effort (just go and kill some fiends). You can optionally fix the economy by using PTWB's Economy Overhaul mod (which I use), in which case they can be judged whether they makes sense. Imo, armor repair kits work well with EO's much harsher economy.

- Ice Cold Sars: I have ironmaned the game without ever using it, so how helpful can it be? Anyway, I have no experience with this.

- Drinks and Survival skill: The Survival skill needs further boost, honestly. Even in hardcore mode, it is still not useful enough to be a high priority skill (I 'd say it still of medium priority, and I am being generous). Anything that strengthens it is a good thing.

- DR in armors is great, and is one of the changes that impressed me. Sawyer did not add DR, but at the same time he advised against playing Very Hard difficulty (ie, he never balanced Very Hard). DR makes perfect sense on Very Hard.

- I do not understand the better armors argument. Opponents use the same armors.

- AGL penalty on armors. It is still there for some armors (metal armor and the weaker PA), I do not currently know what armors it was taken away from to judge it.

In conclusion: You are claiming that the changes make the game easier, but the ones I see just strengthen some weaker options (other than a couple that I do not remember well enough to judge). Making difficult games does not mean having useless perks/weapons/armors, for example. In a well balanced game, all perks/weapons/armors that are strictly inferior have to be strengthened to be made appropriate for certain styles of play.

As a matter of fact, some weapons have to strengthened too, because currently noone in their right mind is using them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

bunch of fucking autists
install a big boobs mod and move on

 

[Risewild]

In conclusion: You are claiming that the changes make the game easier, but the ones I see just strengthen some weaker options (other than a couple that I do not remember well enough to judge). Making difficult games does not mean having useless perks/weapons/armors, for example. In a well balanced game, all perks/weapons/armors that are strictly inferior have to be strengthened to be made appropriate for certain styles of play.

As a matter of fact, some weapons have to strengthened too, because currently noone in their right mind is using them.

This means exactly what I said, by strengthening some things, you make the game easier. Also, the perks are not useless. They are weak, like the mod purpose means. Otherwise they are OP.

By changing these things that the original mod changed with the purpose of making them weak, you're already changing the intention of the original mod. Doesn't matter if it's "useless" things (which they aren't unless you want to be OP, but then what's the point in playing with a mod that the original purpose is to prevent that OPness?). It changes so much it's definitely not the same mod but in "Ultimate" edition. That would be if all the original mod's changes were still the same and you only fixed the bugs, not reverting, removing and changing tons of stuff just because you feel it should be changed.

- Recipes for all raw meat: That was definitely one of Sawyer's goals. He has said so himself in public.

Can I get a source? Not because I'm doubting you, but because I'm always interested in what the devs original vision for FNV was. Knowing this stuff can sometimes help when balancing TTW. Since we know what to aim at when in doubt.

 

[Yosharian]

Guys you have to try out Viva New Vegas. It really is fantastic.

 

[502]

Surely some of Ultimate's changes to JSawyer were based on player feedback, and not the modder's snap decision to move shit around just because?

 

[Keye_]

Guys you have to try out Viva New Vegas. It really is fantastic.

Spent all day yesterday following the guide and have been playing the game today.
Great and easy to follow guide even if you haven't modded in years, like me.
Game itself is excellent. Runs smooth, looks good, stays true to the vanilla spirit of the game, but improves almost every aspect of it.

Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[Sigourn]

I'm feeling like replaying New Vegas, somewhat against my will since I usually abandon playthroughs and I really wanted my next playthrough to be with an ENB to drastically improve the game's lack of shadows. But since that requires a new computer = money = a job, it will be a while and I was thinking of going for a, quite literally, vanilla + bugfixes + JSawyer Ultimate and that's it. Though I've installed visual mods in all Bethesda games I've played in the past, ever since fully commiting to Morrowind and New Vegas I've only install a few visual improvements here and there, nothing in the way of "install this massive texture pack". Plus I think it would give me some great insight into how the game plays with just those mods, and provide valuable information for future playthroughs (as to what needs to be modified to be more fun, for instance).

Thoughs? Is it worth it to go like that?

 

[Yosharian]

I'm feeling like replaying New Vegas, somewhat against my will since I usually abandon playthroughs and I really wanted my next playthrough to be with an ENB to drastically improve the game's lack of shadows. But since that requires a new computer = money = a job, it will be a while and I was thinking of going for a, quite literally, vanilla + bugfixes + JSawyer Ultimate and that's it. Though I've installed visual mods in all Bethesda games I've played in the past, ever since fully commiting to Morrowind and New Vegas I've only install a few visual improvements here and there, nothing in the way of "install this massive texture pack". Plus I think it would give me some great insight into how the game plays with just those mods, and provide valuable information for future playthroughs (as to what needs to be modified to be more fun, for instance).

Thoughs? Is it worth it to go like that?

YOU REALLY OUGHT TO TRY VIVA NEW VEGAS, IT REALLY IS FANTASTIC

 

[d1r]

I'm feeling like replaying New Vegas, somewhat against my will since I usually abandon playthroughs and I really wanted my next playthrough to be with an ENB to drastically improve the game's lack of shadows. But since that requires a new computer = money = a job, it will be a while and I was thinking of going for a, quite literally, vanilla + bugfixes + JSawyer Ultimate and that's it. Though I've installed visual mods in all Bethesda games I've played in the past, ever since fully commiting to Morrowind and New Vegas I've only install a few visual improvements here and there, nothing in the way of "install this massive texture pack". Plus I think it would give me some great insight into how the game plays with just those mods, and provide valuable information for future playthroughs (as to what needs to be modified to be more fun, for instance).

Thoughs? Is it worth it to go like that?

Well, static shadows still, and never won't be a thing in FNV. So forget about objects like houses or trees casting actual shadows (hilarious though that people were able to do that in Morrowind).

ENB comes with SSAO and "Detailed Shadowing", but it's for the most time just a minor improvement when it comes to shadows, even though it sometimes will look nice (and sometimes detailed shadowing casts some weird bugs on the ground).

If you go with a ENB, go for the ONYX ENB with Realistic Wasteland Lighting.

Here are two examples:
DETAILED SHADOWING WITHOUT

Spoiler

DETAILED SHADOWING (left side of the face)

Spoiler

NO SSAO

Spoiler

SSAO

Spoiler

 

[Nano]

I'm feeling like replaying New Vegas, somewhat against my will since I usually abandon playthroughs and I really wanted my next playthrough to be with an ENB to drastically improve the game's lack of shadows. But since that requires a new computer = money = a job, it will be a while and I was thinking of going for a, quite literally, vanilla + bugfixes + JSawyer Ultimate and that's it. Though I've installed visual mods in all Bethesda games I've played in the past, ever since fully commiting to Morrowind and New Vegas I've only install a few visual improvements here and there, nothing in the way of "install this massive texture pack". Plus I think it would give me some great insight into how the game plays with just those mods, and provide valuable information for future playthroughs (as to what needs to be modified to be more fun, for instance).

Thoughs? Is it worth it to go like that?

I'm confused. Do you hate New Vegas or don't you?

 

[RNGsus]

I'm feeling like replaying New Vegas, somewhat against my will since I usually abandon playthroughs and I really wanted my next playthrough to be with an ENB to drastically improve the game's lack of shadows. But since that requires a new computer = money = a job, it will be a while and I was thinking of going for a, quite literally, vanilla + bugfixes + JSawyer Ultimate and that's it. Though I've installed visual mods in all Bethesda games I've played in the past, ever since fully commiting to Morrowind and New Vegas I've only install a few visual improvements here and there, nothing in the way of "install this massive texture pack". Plus I think it would give me some great insight into how the game plays with just those mods, and provide valuable information for future playthroughs (as to what needs to be modified to be more fun, for instance).

Thoughs? Is it worth it to go like that?

YOU REALLY OUGHT TO TRY VIVA NEW VEGAS, IT REALLY IS FANTASTIC

Says I need a snes controller:

 

[Sigourn]

I'm confused. Do you hate New Vegas or don't you?

I love New Vegas, but I think the base game is just "ok" because of its lack of difficulty. Anyhow I will be rolling like that, just bugfixes and JSawyer Ultimate. Better that than to start looking at mod conflicts and so on and so on. If Sawyer designed the game like that, that's how I'll be playing.

 

[RNGsus]

New California is bad.

 

[Butter]

Pretty big mod called Brave New World finally has a release date: August 1, 2020.



Mod comes in two parts. First part revoices ~150 characters in the game, focusing on characters that were poorly voiced in the base game, and instances where the same voice actor was being over-used (like Yuri Lowenthal voicing a ton of BoS and Legion characters). Second part is an optional redesign for the revoiced characters.

 

[Riddler]

Is there any mod or fan-patch that solves the fast travel bug?

 

[Black Angel]

Any recommended power armor mods? I planned to use Powered Power Armor as suggested by the now obsolete Fear&Loathing in New Vegas modding guide, but with YUP still updating, the compatibility patch at Mojave Patch Outpost made by the exact same guy who created the guide is also rendered obsolete.

I came upon this https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/59399?tab=description

Pretty big mod called Brave New World finally has a release date: August 1, 2020.



Mod comes in two parts. First part revoices ~150 characters in the game, focusing on characters that were poorly voiced in the base game, and instances where the same voice actor was being over-used (like Yuri Lowenthal voicing a ton of BoS and Legion characters). Second part is an optional redesign for the revoiced characters.

It came to my attention that the modder is none other than Dracomies, who's also the creator of New Vegas Redesigned (NVR). Is Brave New World the final version of his NVR4? Edit: turns out, something like that. Should've read his FAQ first.

 

[razvedchiki]

To each it's own. It's a matter of preferences, so if people prefer JSU it's their own right.

But I will have to try and counter the part about about JSU being FNV should have been from the start. Because JS Mod makes the game harder on purpose.

I already mentioned the change of the Implant GRX from 2 and 3 to 3 and 5 uses, that allows a player to have the same amount of uses in one perk in JSU as it would have with two perks in JS Mod and the second rank allows almost twice the uses per day in JSU as it would in JS Mod. Once again, Implant GRX is quite a OP ability, allowing almost the twice uses of it already makes the game easier.

I will just go through the differences in the change log and point out why some already change the intention and difficulty of the original mod:
JSU alters the effects of consumables from JS Mod. It changes the effects of those consumables to a script as to "correct an oversight", this "oversight" is that in FNV consumables have their benefits increase with the character's skills (survival for food and medicine for healing consumables), but the game also increases the negatives from consuming these things with higher character skills. So when you eat something that has a negative and a positive effect, both those effects will be increased when your character's related skill increases too. At first glance, this seems to be an oversight, but it makes sense it wasn't "fixed" in JS Mod, because it makes the game harder, and it makes using consumables have drawback that are proportional to the benefits (both increase with the skills). Removing the increase of penalties with skill level makes using consumables way more beneficial in JSU compared to JS Mod. It really changes the difficulty already (specially in Hardcore mode, since the preferred way of healing in that mode is using food items).

Changing the Stimpak Sickness duration from 120s to 30s... That's reducing a penalty's duration by 4 times... 4 bloody times! That means that you can use Super Stimpaks and only have to wait 30 seconds to lose the STR and AGL penalties instead of 2 minutes... Another "fix" that alters the balance of JS Mod to make it way easier.

Changed the Homemade and Expired Stimpaks use when having the Fast Metabolism perk (so it works like the other Stimpak versions). Again, making the change to how these two stimpak versions work with the perk seems logical, after all the "good" versions of the stims work that way, why would the weaker versions not work like that too? The answer is once more... Balance. JS Mod made these weaker versions work like this with that perk because they are supposed to be weaker and not depended on for tough situations. By making them have a stronger healing effect instead of said effect last longer is defeating the purpose from the original mod. It's turning a healing item that is supposed to be weak and not good for hard battles into a somehow useful item for those same hard battles (20% more healing in shorter time is way more useful than 20% less healing but the healing effect lasting 20% longer). Expired and Homemade Stims are supposed to be used after a battle, not to be relied on in the heat of a tough situation, but that simple "fix" already remove the intention and lowers the difficulty of the original mod.

Adds recipes for all raw meat. Fair enough, makes sense. Although it also reduces the difficulty of the original mod by a tiny bit. Because now the player has more options for turning consumables into better ones.

Adds armor repair kits that can also be crafted. Fair enough, makes sense since the game has weapon repair kits. Also helps destroy more the already bad economy in FNV. Not having armor repair kits forces the player to have to spend other equivalent armors to repair the ones they use, pay vendors to repair them or use the Jury Rigging perk (a level 14 perk that requires 90 repair skill) that allows to repair their armors with any armor of the same category. Without the Jury Rigging perk, some armors are impossible to repair unless the player uses caps, and since the price of repairs is dependent on the condition needed to be repaired and the price of the armor, it makes the player have to spend quite a few caps depending on the body armor/headgear/face gear combination that needs to be repaired (the character can equip up to three pieces of armor at the same time, depending on the type of slot that armor takes, body, head, face, full face). So repairing your armors is usually more expensive than repairing your weapons (unless you play sneaky sniper, since you will use your weapons a lot more than you will be getting hit).
This armor repair kit also repairs all the armors worn at that time, which means it can be exploited by the payer equipping several pieces of armor at once and get them all repaired at once and quite cheap (for example, the character is equipped with a body armor and a full head helmet, the body armor needs repairs but the helmet doesn't, so the player can equip an open faced helmet and a mask like the Rebreather and use the repair kit, voilá, it repaired all of the three at once and at a super cheap price).
This addition might make sense, since there are weapon repair kits, but it unbalances the game and makes it much easier.

Added Ice Cold Sunset Sarsaparilla, which makes the drink have a more powerful healing effect. Makes it easier.

It marginally increases the weight of some items (usually 0 to 0.2, 0 to 0.5, 0.2 to 0.25 or 0.5, etc.) which increases the difficulty, but then it also decreases the weight of other stuff by quite not marginally (Grilled Mantis weight decreases from 1 to 0.4, other stuff from 1 to 0.5, from 1 to 0.25, etc.). In the end it all cancels each other out so it end up pretty much the same.

It reduced the healing effects of drinks like Nuka Cola varieties and Sunset Sarsaparilla, but if flagged them as food items, so now survival skill will affect them, and if you have a high skill, they will end up healing more than the flat value they had before (with survival of 40/50 they are already healing the same as the flat value and with max survival skill they will be healing almost twice as much). This is worse with the Sarsaparilla, which he only nerfed the duration of the healing effect, from 12 seconds to 10 seconds, so in the base mod we would heal 12 HP over 12 seconds and in the JSU you will heal 10 HP over 10s, but that is only if you have a survival skill lower than 30. With only a survival skill of 30 you already have double healing for just 2 seconds less (you heal 20HP in 10s instead of 12HP in 12s) and with max Survival skill this drink is healing almost 5x more but for only 2 less seconds (you will be healing 50HP in 10s against the 12HP healed in 12s from the base mod). Making the game easier once again.

Added a small amount of DR to all light armors. Now they reduce more damage taken (I don't know how much is a small amount, so it can be anything from 1 to 10 or more). Game is easier.

Added armor effects to a range of armor and clothing. The reasoning for this change is because the original mod added some effects to raider and mercenary armor. But the reason it added those effects in the first place was to boost those enemies a bit since they are usually quite weak. Adding bonuses to a range of other armor and clothing will usually only be useful for the player, because then they can benefit more from those bonuses (specially since the PC has access to perks while the enemies don't). This makes the game easier.

Replaced AGL reductions on apparel with Sneak reductions. The reasoning was that the base mod did this for a few armors, so it's "finishing what was started", except it made sense for those armors to have Sneak penalty, but not all of them. AGL penalty makes the game harder in general than Sneak penalty (AGL affects AP. Also affects the speed of reloading, holster and drawing a weapon).

This is already an enormous wall of text and I didn't even reached half of it. So I will cut it short for the sake of everyone's sanity's (mine included). I will just mention a few general things and be done with it.

It also made the game easier by adding new recipes, by allowing to craft/cook using more item varieties, by allowing some items to not be consumed while crafting using them. Added more items that can be used to repair some weapons (whet stones can repair bladed weapons now) Added several weapons to enemies but some of these weapons are quite valuable and they are in the hands of raiders that are easy to dispatch and get the loot, making it easier to increase your caps just by easily killing these enemies. Edited some weapons in a way that make the game easier (just check the weapons section almost all the points are about decreasing ammo used by half or increased damage or decreasing weapon weight, sometimes by half.), altered the XP reward values to the nearest 25 ending up giving more XP in the end, just, and I quote "to give nicer figures", added a few early game traders (which makes the game easier), and many other stuff.

I will mention that the mod does have several changes that make the game harder:
It reduces by half the healing of the items provided by the Them's Good Eatin' perk (Thin red paste, Thick red paste and Black blood sausage) not affected by the original mod (the original edits the Blood Sausage). It also nerfed the Gecko steak. Made it so placed Stimpaks can be the expired version (although it boosted these versions as mentioned before). Altered the bobby pins and lockpick skill values so bobby pins break easier and lockpicking is a bit harder (but reduced the time in between hacking attempts from 10s to 2s) and other stuff.

In the end, JSU makes the game much easier than JS Mod, it really doesn't feel the same vision for FNV as the original mod. I could go on and on about more changes but this already took too much time to write and no one will read even half of this post anyway...

from the moment jsaywer ultimate was posted i told people it changed the original mod in many (undocumented) ways with none believing me.
thank you for documenting the changes man.

 

[Butter]

The Frontier has been in development for quite a long while, and by the look of things it's (relatively) close to completion. Judging by these numbers, it's bigger than FO3.

 

[Sigourn]

I love New Vegas, but I think the base game is just "ok" because of its lack of difficulty. Anyhow I will be rolling like that, just bugfixes and JSawyer Ultimate. Better that than to start looking at mod conflicts and so on and so on. If Sawyer designed the game like that, that's how I'll be playing.

The base game is bad and even when modded it's just "okay". No amount of mods will fix New Vegas' terrible moment to moment gameplay and "branching quests" that more often than not boil down to picking a different skill check and remain as unrewarding as ever. The thing with New Vegas' quests is that, for the most part, you never feel rewarded for completing them. It seems like a ton of tedious busywork with no real pay off other than "another quest crossed off my quest log". Ultimately the big problem with New Vegas is that if you think the main quest is boring, you are out of luck as most of the quests in the game are directly related to said major conflict. It's as if 90% of Fallout 1's quests had to do with your Vault and its lack of water; instead, the water chip is your motivation for exploring the world instead of the key "theme" behind every single quest (because of how Fallout begins, one understands that the theme behind the quests could be "this is what a post-nuclear world looks like").

re: JS vs JSUE

I know PushTheWinButton has made some drastic changes on the mod over the past months, mostly to reduce changes that weren't present in the original JS mod. It's, however, as someone else said: this is NOT "jsawyer". This is very much PushTheWinButton's vision for the game, inspired by jsawyer.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Listen Sawyer's mod was just about making the game harder for the player by HP bloat, reducing levels, reducing experience, simulating a longer journey of growth, and some weight / HP shit. it wasn't really all that imaginative for a guy who has access to every toolset and design doc and a fucking year or so to build it out.

 

[Sigourn]

Listen Sawyer's mod was just about making the game harder for the player by HP bloat, reducing levels, reducing experience, simulating a longer journey of growth, and some weight / HP shit. it wasn't really all that imaginative for a guy who has access to every toolset and design doc and a fucking year or so to build it out.

To make New Vegas "genuinely hard" you have to rebuilt it from the ground up, because it's either HP bloat or allowing the player to OHKO (and be OHKO'd) by NPCs, and that strips out every last remain of RPG mechanics from the combat.