It’s A Mod Lifestyle: The 10 Most Useful Mods for Fallout 4

The vibrant mod community has been busy since Fallout 4 released, adding a wealth of mods to improve the game's core graphics, user interface, settlements, crafting, and overall gameplay. Jonathan Leack provided a quick list of 10 fantastic mods that arrived within days of release. This list combs over the more than 1800 mods available on NexusMods to provide another list of 10 mods that are incredibly useful without being outright cheats.

Just remember to modify your Fallout 4's configuration files—just changing two lines—so that the mods you apply work. You can watch this handy video by Gopher on YouTube on how to make the process fast and easy.

 

Stuttering and Memory Patch

If your computer has some RAM to spare, this popular mod provides better frame rates, higher texture resolution, and stability. Make sure that you read the requirements and the installation instructions carefully, so that you allocate the right amount of video memory for your machine and apply the right settings for VSync and FPS limits. Over the last few weeks, this mod has been updated to work with Steam better and have automatic adjustments for shadow draw distances. 

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Settler Renaming

Once any of your settlements in Fallout 4 reaches a population of ten or more settlers, it can get extremely confusing as to which settler has been assigned to what task (unless they're doing that task right in front of you). This mod allows you to rename these settlers to several different general names like Farmer and Guard so that you know exactly what their role is just at a glance. If you're into building a bustling community, this mod will save you a lot of headaches.

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Craftable Ammo

It's unclear why Fallout 4 doesn't have ammo crafting given that ammo can be in short supply in the Commonwealth (unless you have the Scrounger perk) and given that Fallout: New Vegas had ammo crafting. The system was admittedly tough to use in New Vegas, but this mod makes things simple. With some copper, lead, steel, and other ingredients found all over the wasteland, you can craft whatever ammo you need for the guns you use the most.

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Value Per Weight Indicator

As I mentioned in my tips guide for Fallout 4, carry weight is a limited resource that needs to be managed so that you can carry back the most resources and caps through trading each time you venture out. This mod makes it easy to see what the value of an item is compared to its weight (the Value/WT stat you see in the screenshot above). Of course, if you're savvy at arithmetic, then you won't really need this mod. But in case you want a clear and easy indication of what the value/weight stat is (can't remember the last time I did long division), this is the mod you're looking for.

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Better Item Sorting

It doesn't take long for your inventory to become ridiculously long, especially the miscellaneous and aid category. Why this isn't sorted one step further is strange, a step that this mod provides. While it can't sort weapons and armor with all the various prefixes that they can have, it does sort magazines, bobbleheads, magazines, foods, drugs, chems, mini-games, notes, and more.

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Improved Map With Visible Roads

This is a rather simple but effective enhancement. If you find that roads are, for some reason, blurry on the map display on the Pip-Boy, then this mod makes the roads far more visible. It also makes the waterline and topography more clearly defined, and it has various download options in case you want a darker map.

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Full Dialogue Interface

Jonathan reported on this mod earlier, and I can confirm that this mod is right for practically everyone. Yes, it arranges dialogue options in a more traditional list format (though it seems you can keep the diamond arrangement as well), but it's the fact that it expands the vague dialogue options like "Sarcastic" to the full dialogue line that makes this mod brilliant. Plus, seeing the full lines of dialogue ensures that you don't have to go back to a previous save just to see all the dialogue options. Thank goodness.

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Settlement Supplies Expanded (SSEx)

We're not sure why Bethesda decided to leave out many of the objects in the game from being craftable in settlements. The creators of this mod didn't understand this either, so they've decided to amend it. Settlement Supplies Expanded adds 70 furniture items, 80 doors, food planters, and various static objects like walls and metal walkways. I like the motorcycle and Brotherhood of Steel barricades myself. It only uses cloth right now as a component for all the items the mod adds, but this will likely be changed later down the road.

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Higher Settlement Budget

Are you tired of the size limitation for settlements? Why is there a limit anywhere when your PC can obviously handle it? This mod expands the size of a settlement by three times through a console command. Just be sure not to go overboard with the objects since there is a danger that your game will freeze and stutter.

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Easy To See Mags and Bobbleheads

Depending on the lighting, it can be sometimes difficult to spot a magazine and a bobblehead among the similarly textured desk and background. This pair of mods has these objects much easier to see, especially in the dark, so that you don't accidentally leave them behind when searching a lengthy dungeon. I've forgotten a few on my own playthroughs; I just wished I had this mod beforehand.

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