As I mentioned in my earlier post on Fallout: New Vegas, one of the the most important features for me was the game’s comprehensive and fairly easy-to-use modding tools.  Like other games before it in the same engine, the ease of modding has resulted in communities that release truly amazing mods that change a wide variety of aspects about the game, expanding it with everything from new weapons and armor to new storylines that are at least as comprehensive as those created by the original designers.  These mods have added an incredible amount more gameplay for me, and they’ve definitely conspired to make FNV one of my most-played games of all time.  So, for those of you who are interested in expanding this game, the following is a write-up of many of the major plugins I’m currently using with the game, and what I think makes them an important, or at least interesting, addition to the game.

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Part 1: Weapon Mods

Classic Fallout Weapons New Vegas

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37002

CFWNV is perhaps one of the most comprehensive weapon addition mods for New Vegas (at least, until the port of 19th and 20th century weapons is complete).  It takes a wide variety of weapons from previous Fallout games, including a good amount of what would be considered “modern” weapons.  Essentially, it takes the already good selection of weaponry in New Vegas and adds a much wider variety in almost every category, everything from crowbars to the Pancor Jackhammer riot shotgun.  This addition makes the gameplay a bit more varied, and as it adds weapons to the various factions you encounter, means that you’ll come across a lot more interesting equipment in your travels.  Additionally, it also uses CaliberX (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39981), an ammo support library, to pair the weapons with a huge variety of accurate ammunition.  All in all, if you had to choose one additional weapon replacer, this would be it.

Book of Earache Vegas Edition

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=40172

This is another mods that adds a lot of weapons, most of which look rather amazingly hi-res when compared to the original weapons, and primarily focus on modern weapons with all the trimmings.  Want to play around in the wasteland with a WA2000 semiauto sniper rifle or an XM8?  This pack’s got you covered.  It focuses mainly on guns, but provides an impressive selection to choose from, and many of them can be modded as well.  It also includes an optional add-on that swaps out the models of many of the regular FNV weapons, and replaces them with modern weapons, which in my opinion is quite an improvement.  Additionally, it packs a few other interesting features, including persistent shell casings (when firing in third-person mode, at least) and a new, fully-equipped player suite with integrated weapons shop at the Lucky 38.

Exciter Guns Mini-Pack

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39561

This weapon pack focuses mainly on carbines and assault rifles, but has some pretty nice models and a good variety of M16/M4-style weapons.  Previous versions had some issues with shaky animation, but this one has been pretty solid, and most of the guns are pretty detailed, with a variety of attachments, and a fairly decent selection of weapon mods as well.  If you like carbines, this is a good one to round out your weapon selection without adding quite as much as the more comprehensive packs.

ZL Armaments

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39883

This mod adds a weapon shop in the general direction of New Vegas, with a small living space as well as a half-decent variety of new weapons.  With this mod, once you earn a safehouse from any of the factions, you also get a key to the shop (although I modified my version to award a key upon starting a new game).  One thing this pack offers is a nice choice of silenced weapons, including a silenced sniper rifle, assault rifle, and MP-10SD submachinegun (in addition to straight MP10 and MP5K variants).  It also adds a multi-role ACWS (advanced combat weapons system) that can be modified to serve a variety of roles (in its various forms, it can serve as a replacement for the assault carbine, marksman carbine, and sniper rifle, respectively).  Although, if you’re interested in ACWS, you can also check out Exciter’s Masada ACWS pack (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=40110), which features a similar system, with the additional benefit of using the SelectFire system (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=40242) to provide weapons with auto/burst/semi functionality.

Stalker Weapons Pack

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=40175

I haven’t used this one extensively, but I’ve used individual weapons from this pack, and they’re generally pretty decent.  It’s a good, diverse pack, from pistols to machineguns, including many popular weapons (with multiple packs there’s bound to be a little overlap).  This pack has some good pistols, and I especially like the PKM light machinegun.

Darkfiregaming Mod

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36669

While this mod primarily advertises itself as a T-shirt clothing mod, it actually contains a tactical weapons pack featuring a variety of weapon variations with pretty much every modification under the sun, including a heartbeat monitor (unfortunately, a non-working one).  Mainly features H&K weapons, along with a pretty good M14 (although I slightly prefer the version from Book of Earache).

Nordic Firearms

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39754

A medium-sized weapons pack with a variety of fairly unique-looking guns, all of which have a good variety of weapon mods.  This is another one I haven’t played around with a lot, but the weapons look to be pretty good so far, have decent sounds and are reasonably heavy-hitting.

Those are the main weapon packs, but there are also a lot of other interesting individual weapons you can load up, a few of which are listed below:

-Glock 18c and 20 (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39885)

-Mk. 23 (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39867)

-Springfield 1911 (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37680)

-Dan Wesson PPC .357 (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35843)

-COP .357 Derringer (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39971)

-M-2081 Plasma Revolver (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=40174)

-Beretta Samurai Edge (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=40284)

That wraps up Part 1 of many – still to come are features on player houses, gameplay changes, armors, new content packs, and much more (as of this writing, I have about 125 active mods for FNV, so there’s a lot of ground to cover).

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