Q : Fallout 3 Mandatory Mods?

I earned some Wife Reputation today and was treated to FO3:GOTY from Steam.

I am looking for a list of what you would consider the Must Have mods within the following constraint...

I am only looking for necessary bug fixes as well as any appropriate Texture and Atmospheric mods that you feel are essential.

So far I have seen the following at Fallout 3 Nexus...

ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated
NMC's Large Address Aware Enabler
Fallout Remastered (instead of UF3P which seems out of date)
NMC's Texture Pack (Full)
Dynamic Weather

I am unsure if I need to use any UI mod and also if I need to tweak something because of using a multi-core processor.

I have a 64-bit OS and a 6-core 3.33GHz processor with 12Gb RAM and an ATI 5870 1Gb card at 2650x1440 if that is relevant information.

Thanks for making the Sticky post about the mods, Carabas.

I have added the DarNified UI and will look at the color hi-detailed map and the 3 flavors of American pre-war money later.

There are many mods out there. I have updated the list in a while (as I'm no longer playing F3) so if you want to add some mods please feel free to post some links.

I have found a nice texture mod for FO3 terrain but I am still looking for one which deals with the NPC Clothing Textures and am open to suggestions.

There is one which adds Grunge to them but keeps the resolution of them the same. I don't want to go round the Wastes seeing everyone spray-painted with even more dirt!

I would really prefer to find something for NPC Clothing which is HD but you have to be careful... the majority of the HD clothing mods seem to be of the Bikini or Fetish types to go with the BBB body remodels. Hmm... some male modders need to get outside more!

On another note, is a Small Arms specialist viable for the endgame? I have seen a few comments along the lines that most of the end-game weapons are energy based (Alien Blaster, Laser Rifles etc). A character specialising in Energy Weapons will have a much harder start of course but an easier time at the end. I was wondering if I continue to pour points into Small Guns if I will still be able to hold my own at the end with things like the Combat Shotgun, Assault Rifles and Sniper Rifles (or their unique variants).

EDIT : I should note that I have now added the following texture/immersion mods and it is working perfectly...

Fallout Remastered (Patch)
NMC's Texture Pack Full (Terrain and object HD Texture)
Dynamic Weather
DarNified UI
Color High Detailed Map
3 Flavors of American Pre-War Money
Fallout 3 Redesigned (formerly Project Beauty HD)
GabbyStardust HD Hair (included in Fallout 3 Redesigned)

The guns skill works for small and big guns and most people will agree that it is much more useful than energy weapons.

Some people are raving about the Alien Blaster or the Gauss Rifle but truth be told you can get by with regular guns for the entire game.

The game isn't that hard even on the highest difficulty setting.

Phew, thanks! Good to know.

In fact if you're really good with your aim you may even not feel the need to put to many points in these skills as it may make the game incredibly easy.

You can even try a melee/grenade character which should work very nicely given the nature of the game.

It's different with Fallout 1. Different skills for different guns meaning that you have to gear up and diversify to take down some of the bigger (often armoured) foes.

Well this time I have tried the Small Guns / Sneak / Lockpicks / Repair / Science girl. She isn't too good at Speech and Barter and her carrying capacity sucks but between her Sniper Rifle (thanks to the guy at the minefield) and a lucky find of a combat shotgun, she is doing fine.

Of course the sniper rifle is about to fall apart and I can't afford to get it repaired much... but that is another problem.

By the way, are there food "recipes" to use and refine the raw monster/animal meat products or are they just the least efficient way to heal considering their rad dose?

In FNV you have some recipes for that but in vanilla F3 I don't think so (It's been a long time since I've played F3 and even longer since I've played the vanilla game but I would remember if it was the case).