Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands mod

[Blackhawk]

Lots of people are returning to Fallout for... some reason. I'm starting a thread for this, just for convenience/neatness sake, to make things easy to find, and to avoid cluttering other threads. Of course, now I have to write an introduction...

Tale of Two Wastelands is a super-mod that takes all of the Fallout 3 content and adds it to Fallout: New Vegas. In practice, you start playing Fallout 3, and, at any point you choose, you can travel to New Vegas, get bonked on the head, and play that campaign. After a certain point, you can return to the Capital Wasteland (FO3) and resume that one, or travel back and forth, or whatever, bringing your followers between campaigns, too. Not only is it a rock-solid mod, it's very well documented, and the big advantage is that FO:NV has a more refined, capable version of the engine, with mechanics that improved on Fallout 3. Even if you just want to play FO3 and not New Vegas, this is a great way to go.

Installation takes attention to detail, but isn't bad at all thanks to top-notch documentation.

Note that due to Epic being less than epic, playing this with the Epic version of FO:NV is currently impossible.



Link

[Carpet_pissr]

I'm so close to getting this to work I can smell it!

Issues I ran into in case anyone else is following, and I followed the excellent instructions to a tee:

1. When trying to merge the two games (step before compiling, which takes a minute!), I got an error saying something about the data file not being in the right place (this was for FO3, which I am using from Epic). Could very well be an Epic issue, but I saw no mention of this. I simply copied the data file and moved it up a...tree branch in the directory, and that seemed to work. Totally guessing on that one!

2. Installation notes say that FNV will work from Epic, but as BH mentioned above, it will not (now - it did previously). I just bought it again from Eneba or something similar for $4 or so....Steam version.

3. You need ALL the DLC's for both versions, or the ultimate/GOTY version.

4. You have to install and use Mod Organizer 2 in order to play this, and run the game from that.


Final issue, hopefully you can help BH or VR:

Again, I was able to successfully compile the games (took about 2 hours I think, maybe longer), but now MO2 (Mod Organizer 2) is saying that it can't find the FNV exe. I went back and restarted both games to the logo screen, as it mentioned, but no dice.

Any ideas? I assume it's just moving SOME file SOMEwhere but I have no idea what, or where. This issue was not in the troubleshooting or FAQ section.

I will say I MUCH prefer the previous mod apps I used over MO2. I understand that it's probably more technically powerful, but it is MUCH less user friendly than Vortex or others I have used. Jabbawock?

[Blackhawk]

Final issue, hopefully you can help BH or VR:

Again, I was able to successfully compile the games (took about 2 hours I think, maybe longer), but now MO2 (Mod Organizer 2) is saying that it can't find the FNV exe. I went back and restarted both games to the logo screen, as it mentioned, but no dice.

Any ideas? I assume it's just moving SOME file SOMEwhere but I have no idea what, or where. This issue was not in the troubleshooting or FAQ section.

I will say I MUCH prefer the previous mod apps I used over MO2. I understand that it's probably more technically powerful, but it is MUCH less user friendly than Vortex or others I have used. Jabbawock?

How are you launching it?

(And FWIW, the benefits of MO2 over Vortex and it's kin are significant - but you're right that it has a steeper learning curve.)

[Blackhawk]

Also, fair warning - I took a mid-game hiatus, and left it on hold for quite a while. My actual installation experience with TTW is about a year and a half old, and my memory sucks.

[Daehawk]

Ive used both. I like how MO2 would handle mods in that it could be removed or added or turned on and off easy. The mods sorta sat over the game somehow.. hard to explain.

But last I used stuff I still preferred Vortex. In fact I preferred the one before Vortex and didn't like Vortex when it first came out.

[Blackhawk]

Short version: Mod Organizer doesn't touch the actual game. It doesn't touch the game's files. It makes copies of what it needs, keeps mods in a separate folder, then uses Technomage tricks to convince the game that it's fully modded. The advantages are that you can run multiple profiles of the same game (allowing you to have multiple characters without having a dozen mage mods on your archer, or to have one install customized for multiple people, or to experiment with a new mod pack without affecting your old game), can run the vanilla unmodded game without reinstalling it, can save your current mod loadout and try changes to it for troubleshooting or to further mod it without affecting the original install, can tweak the config files in a way that Bethesda can't mess with (the default ES/FO launcher infamously likes to set parts of your config files back to the default without asking you), and a dozen other, similar advantages.

The simple fact that the mods are never actually 'installed' into a shared folder is very powerful, as no mod file will ever overwrite any other mod file. Using other managers means that if you install two mods that overlap, whichever you install second will overwrite the files from the first. If you want to change which of those options take precedence, you can't - you have to reinstall those mods from scratch again, which becomes a real nightmare when you have a dozen different mods overlapping in different areas. Reinstall one, break two others. With MO2, they're simply read in whichever order they're in in the list. Want to change precedence, you just change the order.

If someone's going to be doing a lot of modding of Fallout/Elder Scrolls/Starfield, it's worth taking the time to learn how MO2 works. It'll pay off in the long run.

[dbt1949]

[Victoria Raverna]

Is there a mod that improve FO3/FNV graphics that is compatible with TTW? After playing Fallout 4, it is hard to go back to TTW.

[Blackhawk]

Is there a mod that improve FO3/FNV graphics that is compatible with TTW? After playing Fallout 4, it is hard to go back to TTW.

I'd double check with the TTW Discord, but any pure texture replacer should work fine, as long as it doesn't fiddle with the models (have it first in the load order, just to be sure.) I know I mixed-and-matched a couple of texture replacers myself.

[Carpet_pissr]

Is there a mod that improve FO3/FNV graphics that is compatible with TTW? After playing Fallout 4, it is hard to go back to TTW.

Ha! If I can ever get it to run, this will be my first, and likely last question about mods. Honestly it doesn't look too bad currently, except for those faces in the char creation...wowza are those hideous, with shining sparkly pupils like the Big Evil from Half Life 2.

[Carpet_pissr]

Final issue, hopefully you can help BH or VR:

Again, I was able to successfully compile the games (took about 2 hours I think, maybe longer), but now MO2 (Mod Organizer 2) is saying that it can't find the FNV exe. I went back and restarted both games to the logo screen, as it mentioned, but no dice.

Any ideas? I assume it's just moving SOME file SOMEwhere but I have no idea what, or where. This issue was not in the troubleshooting or FAQ section.

I will say I MUCH prefer the previous mod apps I used over MO2. I understand that it's probably more technically powerful, but it is MUCH less user friendly than Vortex or others I have used. Jabbawock?

How are you launching it?

Using MO2 - I think it is just a target/location issue but there have been so many steps to get here (and some finagling on my part to get it to work thus far) that I have no idea how to troubleshoot.

Edit: OK, I got it to launch (I think...it just look like the normal FNV intro to me...not sure if it should look different - i.e. no indication that I have successfully loaded TTW).

Now it launches, and just crashes back to MO2 after a few of the intro screens (Bethesda, Please Stand By, etc).

[Victoria Raverna]

This is a guide on how to improve the visual of FNV including TTW:

https://salamand3r.fail/new-vegas-visual-renewal

I tried to follow it but gave up at the first section (extension) because there are too many mods for me. Maybe it'll help someone that have no problem going through the whole guide and install recommended mods.

[Carpet_pissr]

I am defeated.

I couldn't ever get this to fully work (and there are a metric crap ton of reasons why it might not be, which I am not willing to go through), so I will just go for mostly vanilla with some texture mods and maybe the unofficial mods (unless someone has a MUST HAVE mod they recommend).

[Blackhawk]

Make sure you grab the unofficial patches.

[Carpet_pissr]

Make sure you grab the unofficial patches.

I know of one...but you said "patches" - there are more than one?

[Blackhawk]

Honestly, I don't know. It's been many years since I've manually modded it. I'd personally go and look at a couple of existing mod lists (on Wabbajack or TTW) and see what the basic fixes they use are. Might want to go on Nexus and sort by most downloaded as well, then look through the first page or two and see what looks like it's actually necessary.

Also, make sure you use the 4GB patcher.

[Carpet_pissr]

Gah, I have already been playing for at least an hour, and I realize that some or all my mods are probably not working (I have no idea how to tell).

Using Vortex because I have used it in the past and had a passing familiarity with it, seemed easy. MO2 was a nightmare (for me and my high level of modding ignorance).

Realizing that Vortex is installing mods on one drive, and my game is installed on another. This is AFTER going into settings on Vortex and telling it to install mods on the drive with my game. Not sure if that is a bug, but I sure hate to start over (again) and I guess reinstall the game on the mod designated drive?

I was JUST getting into it, too! Megaton, etc. But seeing the orange "issues" indicated by Vortex was driving me crazy.

My hail mary will be to try to move the game installation to the drive where Vortex insists on installing, so hopefully Epic has as nice a tool as Steam to do intra-drive game moves.

[TheMix]

It's possible you are okay. Though, maybe it's because I'm using MO2. But in my case, the mods are downloaded to one spot. Then when you "install" them, they get copied to where the game itself is. Can you look at the folders/files in the game folder to see if the mods are getting unpacked there? i.e. it may not matter that the mod manager is in a different location than the game

[TheMix]

I wasn't able to find an answer quickly, but this may help:

FOR USERS WITH MULTIPLE PARTITIONS / STORAGE DEVICES

If you have installed your games to a different partition or storage device than Windows, you will need to reconfigure Vortex to ensure that mods can be properly deployed. To do so, navigate to settings and click the 'mods' tab. There, set your base path to a folder that is located on the same partition as your game and ensure that the Deployment Method option is set to "Hardlink deployment".

Check your settings. Regardless of where Vortex is installed, I think as long as you have the path set correctly, that you should be okay. I will say that they lost me with that last bit though.

[TheMix]

Realizing that Vortex is installing mods on one drive, and my game is installed on another.

Are you sure it's installing the mods there and not just downloading them there?

[Carpet_pissr]

Realizing that Vortex is installing mods on one drive, and my game is installed on another.

Are you sure it's installing the mods there and not just downloading them there?

Gah! I didn't realize there are two different install paths in settings (under different tabs! :/) and I had only changed one. I'm likely at the point where I will have to reinstall everything I have mucked and moved around so much.

[Carpet_pissr]

Note that due to Epic being less than epic, playing this with the Epic version of FO:NV is currently impossible.

You can actually use Epic, I think you just have to install the Anniversary patcher which downgrades versions to a neutral, moddable file.

[Blackhawk]

I know that you used to be able to, but they've since said that the support for the Epic version is broken. It's possible that they've fixed it since I posted that.