Despite being released nearly eight years ago, Fallout: New Vegas still has a thriving modding community, with popular mods being updated and new mods being released.
With May 2018 nearly over, we’re almost halfway through the year. Here’s a look at eight mods that keep the Mojave Wasteland a place full of adventure!
Salt Lake Stories
Salt Lake Stories is a mod that has been in development since 2010. Building off of the stories from the Honest Hearts DLC, Salt Lake Stories adds a large world space centered around the Great Salt Lake, with 38 Quests and 50,000+ pieces of dialogue. The mod features some adult content, and is mostly based on files from Van Buren, the unreleased third Fallout game from Black Isle studios, before the franchise came under Bethesda’s wing.
One of the developer’s interesting choices involving the mod was the choice to remove quest markers, as well as blatantly obvious quest direction, forcing players to explore the world to solve their problems, which was something the original Fallout games implemented very well, with things such as the final encounter with The Master in Fallout having multiple non-violent solutions. A second large choice is a removal of larger action sequences. For the most part, Bethesda’s Fallout games take a less nuanced approach to interactions, meaning that more often then not you will end up fighting people to get your way. Fallout: New Vegas does a good job of adding some ways to get around more violent encounters with various skill checks, but Nexus user Yossarian22 has taken it a step further. Although the mod maker is not a native English speaker, and the mod takes some interesting design choices, Salt Lake Stories was one of the top rated mods of Feb. 2018 on the Fallout: Vegas Mod Nexus.
Download Salt Lake Stories now.
This post was originally written by Tyler Krasnai.
Live Dismemberment
Have you ever felt like throwing grenades or using a meat cleaver on your enemies should do a little more than just lower their health bar? Then you need Live Dismemberment. This mod, one of the top rated mods for May 2018 on the Fallout: New Vegas Mod Nexus, allows you to dismember your opponents before killing them. This is a concept that appears in Fallout 4 when fighting Feral Ghouls and Robots, when you cripple their limbs, they are removed or visibly destroyed. Live Dismemberment adds distinct effects depending on what limbs are removed. For example, if you manage to cut off or blow off someone’s leg, they would fall to the ground, being forced to crawl.
The developer of Live Dismemberment recommends that anyone who downloads this mod should also consider getting an older mod, BLEED. The mod BLEED, originally released in 2015, but updated most recently in February 2018, completely alters the way damage is dealt by weapons, making them much more life-like in their destructive power. Live Dismemberment is for download here.
The Living Desert
While the Mojave Wasteland is an inhospitable desert full of violent wildlife, murderous raiders, and plenty of other dangers, many people felt the world was too empty when New Vegas released. The Living Desert completely changes that by adding hundreds of NPCs, scripted events, and quest-related events to the game. The entire wasteland feels so much more populated, and the NCR-Legion conflict looms ever closer with the addition of new spawn locations for NCR Troopers and Legionaries, especially at certain locations where their spawns pit them directly into a skirmish.
Not only does this mod flesh out the wasteland with a cast of extra faces, but it also adds many events that are linked to quest outcomes. There are quests now that, if you fail them or resolve them in a way that a certain faction does not like, you will find yourself hunted down by a squad of assassins, determined to put down Courier 6 before they can do any more harm.
Overall, the mod adds incredible depth to the wasteland, and sometimes truly displays the consequences of certain quest outcomes. Doing things for the NCR that directly hurt the Legion can spawn Legion hit squads, or working helping factions regain a foothold in the wasteland can set up checkpoints or prepare ambushes for their enemies. The Living Desert mod is available now on the Fallout: New Vegas Mod Nexus.
Photon Laser Weapon Pack
One of Fallout’s defining features is the idealistic 1950’s vision of the future melded with the post-apocalyptic. In this sci-fi future, energy weapons such as laser rifles and plasma pistols are a powerful commodity. While the Photon Laser Weapons mod may not be the most lore-friendly weapons mod, the weapons added are an absolute delight.
A laser bullpup PDW, a laser bolt action rifle, and a laser pump-action shotgun allow you to take on the dangers of the Mojave with a new, energetic gusto. Blast your way through Legionaries with the powerful shotgun, or pick off enemies with the bolt action rifle, or fight your way through hordes of feral ghouls with the Laser PDW.
If you’re interested in the Photon Laser Weapon Pack, check it out here.
Mojave Wildlife
In a similar vein to The Living Desert, Mojave Wildlife adds many spawns into the world for various animals. With over 100 new spawns for vanilla wildlife based on cut content, the world becomes full of life. A lot of very dangerous, angry life that will attempt to kill you on sight. This, combined with mods like The Living Desert take what many considered to be a scarcely populated region and turn it into something full of humanity and rich, varied wildlife. If only it were that simple; however, because nearly everything in the wasteland will at least attempt to kill you.
Mojave Wildlife also utilizes unused leveled lists from the game, which introduces varying levels of difficulty to what you face depending on the area, rather than your level. It not only has options to change how the spawns work, choosing between the system used in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, but also allows you to choose between random spawning events, called Chanced Spawns. These, the mod creator believe, are a reason that the game often feels sparse. Most of the creature spawn locations in the base F:NV game have a chance of spawning a creature, rather than simply spawning them when you arrive in that location. This mod allows you to toggle these spawns, meaning that if something can spawn, it will.
Mojave Wildlife is available now, download it here.
GECK Extender
The GECK Extender isn’t a mod for players as much as a mod for other modders. The GECK, known in the Fallout Universe as the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, is software provided by Bethesda that allows modders to have more direct access to the assets in the Fallout games, and makes it much easier for them to develop, test, and fix mods.
The GECK Extender fixes several bugs that appear in the GECK provided for Fallout: New Vegas, as well as enables various functionalities within the system, such as Level 2 LOD generation while building large world spaces.
If you’re a modder, this mod is one to watch, as it is updated to provide more content and fix more issues involving the GECK. You can get your hands on it now on the Fallout: New Vegas Mod Nexus.
Simple Hotkeyed Weapon Scrolling
Sometimes, you encounter a mod with a vague name, something that intrigues you into clicking on it. Simple Hotkeyed Weapon Scrolling is not that kind of mod. This is a basic, single script which adds something into the game that should have been in the game from the beginning.
If you have weapons selected in you favorite sl0ts, which are connected to hotkeys, this mod allows you to simply scroll through them, rapidly changing your weapons much like you can in games like Half-Life 2 or Fortnite.
You can download Simple Hotkeyed Weapon Scrolling now.
Well Rested Overhaul
Similarly to the Simple Hotkeyed Weapon Scrolling mod, the Well Rested Overhaul is something that just makes sense for the game, although it was much more complex to introduce. The mod completely alters the way that the Well Rested buff, a buff you traditionally earn for sleeping in beds you own or have rented. The overhaul changes how long the buff lasts, where it can be applied, and what effects it adds.
Traditionally, the buff always lasts for 12 in-game hours, regardless of how long you rest. On top of this, the buff normally only adds a 10 percent increase to earned experience, which is a great buff until you reach the maximum level and experience has no meaning. This overhaul mod changes all of this. Not only does the buff’s duration depend on how long you’ve slept (at least, up to a solid eight hours), but it also adds bonuses such as a 10% increase to your weapon accuracy, attack speed, and AP regeneration rate. Lastly, the mod takes advantage of the games several sex scenes. Traditionally, the game simply fades to black and advances the clock a few hours. With this overhaul, these now apply the status of sleeping (something very important for Hardcore Players who need to focus on things like Sleep Deprivation and Dehydration), as well as apply well rested for shorter periods due to the shortened periods of the scenes.
You can download the Well Rested Overhaul here.
Are there any mods that you think need to be on here? Alternatively, any mods that you think shouldn’t have been listed? Talk about it in the comments below!
Published: May 23, 2018 10:42 pm