ByFor all those who avoided the full sticker price of a brand new AAA game plus the pricey season pass, your patience has paid off now that Fallout 4 GOTY is here, which bundles all the F4 expansions and the high-resolution texture pack in one place. (If you wait until Black Friday, I have a sneaking suspicion you might get an even bigger discount.)But if you waited until the Game of the Year edition arrived to jump on Bethesda's Commonwealth entry in the Fallout universe, that means you've got a full two years worth of mods to catch up on! Graphics mods, skill mods, UI mods, new quest mods, and (of course) nude mods - there are tens of thousands available, and far more than any one person could ever even play in a single lifetime.So to get you started off right, we're rounding up a lineup of tried and true mod stalwarts that have always been Fallout 4 staples, as well as some newer offerings that will mesh well with F4's Game Of The Year edition.Note that these are all free mods, and unlike Bethesda we're going to actually call them mods. As such, we won't be listing any of the paid 'not-mod' nonsense from the Creation Club (which is just paid mods by another name).

Powerpc instruction set. Now that we've got that little tidbit out of the way, lets get onto the must-have Fallout 4 GOTY mods! Unofficial Fallout 4 PatchIf you've got a huge, open world Bethesda game, your very first order of business should be to find and download the unofficial fan patch. Like this one, it's guaranteed to fix hundreds of bugs, both major and minor, from small issues with items and dialog to big problems with quests and markers.Best of all? The huge number of changes are designed to be as unobtrusive as possible, so they don't ever break other mods or become irrelevant with new patches. This is essential download material for Fallout 4 Game of the Year edition. No More Creation Club NewsNow that you've got the unofficial patch installed, the next order of business is to get rid of the Creation Club News marquee taking up the corner of your screen, which can be really annoying.If you want to drop real-world money in-game on small cosmetic changes that are readily available elsewhere as free mods, well, that's your business. But for the rest of us, downloading this mod helps us reclaim the Fallout 4 experience we want to have.Hopefully, the fact that this is consistently in the Top 10 endorsed mods list every single week sends a clear and obvious message to the developers and publishers out there.

I've been having issues fitting everything as of late.

Full Dialog InterfaceOK, so we've patched all the bugs and gotten rid of the Creation Club nonsense, so now it's time to fix Bethesda's other major Fallout 4 stumble - the condensed dialog wheel.Half of the time the paraphrased example doesn't even really match the real dialog that's said. And there's no question the full voice acted main character really cut down on the dialog options in comparison to previous games.While there's not much to be done about the latter, the former is handily dealt with using this mod that changes things back to the classic Fallout dialog tree, showing exactly what will be conveyed with each option.

Again, this is another essential mod for the best F4 GOTY experience. Sim SettlementsOne of the elements of Fallout 4 that was most touted prior to release is also the element that is probably the most heavily modded: F4 settlements. Although changes and additions were made with the game's official add-ons, there's still plenty about settlement building and settler duty-assigning that's pretty rough around the edges.Sim Settlements is much different from the typical settlement mod in that it drastically changes how settlements work, rather than just simply adding new objects.The goal of the settlements mod is to make it so you are the leader of any given settlement - and not its micro-manager. The mod brings in 'zones' that can be placed (in the manner of Sim City) that prompt your settlers to plant crops, connect water supplies, and construct buildings of a specific type.Every settlement will end up unique using this overhaul, and a progression system is added in so that building settlements is more satisfying and less of something you have to do every so often. Settlement Management SoftwareGoing the opposite direction of the previous mod, this one gives you greater micromanagement powers - and from a distance as well. Instead of having to manually walk up to any given settler, you can automatically assign them to a settlement object from a terminal.This simple terminal program also lets you move settlers between towns, assign supply routes, and check a settlement's stats all in one clean interface.

This will be a great addition to your Fallout 4 GOTY collection. Because let's face it: quality of life upgrades are always welcome.

Traits And PerksMiss the old style of traits and perks from the previous Fallout games? This recreates them in Fallout 4 after a fashion (and adds in new additions).While they can't be directly brought over to the new perk system with its unlimited level cap and new level S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

Screen without causing some major problems, this mod brought them back in a roundabout way using the crafting system.Now you just have to craft a specific type of item that grants you the new traits/perks, and you can easily remove everything to respec your character on the fly from the ground up. Craft AmmoWhile the Contraptions Workshop DLC added an ammunition station that slowly churns out ammo at a fairly high power cost, it isn't really an economical option.This Fallout 4 mod has been here all along, letting you do something that should have been there from Day 1: craft any standard ammo type at a chemistry station. So instead of throwing your junk away, download this mod for F4 GOTY and craft that refuse into something explosive.Stop slogging for ammo - seriously. It's not becoming. Any Mod Any WeaponThis one lets you go absolutely hog wild on weapon crafting, letting you add absolutely any modification to any weapon. Put a MIRV launcher on an automatic rifle so you can fire off dozens of nukes a round; give a scope to your rocket launcher; or add any other ludicrously awesome combination you can come up with!Needless to say, this Fallout 4 mod pretty much breaks balance and lets you make weapons the developer most certainly did not intend.

Note: To use this mod, you need the installed first. True StormsThere's a reason this is one of the most-downloaded Fallout 4 mods of all time - and you should find out why by downloading it yourself at your earliest convenience!Totally overhauling the weather systems in Fallout 4, the True Storms mod brings in new sound effects, textures, particle effects, and much more for a complete change to how rain and storms work.This is more than just adding dreary rain to the game, however, as it also brings customizable radiation storms and ghoul attacks to F4 GOTY! Welcome To GoodneighborBetween the base game and the Automatron/Nuka World/Far Harbor expansions, there's already a staggering number of quests to undertake in Fallout 4. But frankly, there's always room for more in the Commonwealth!As the name implies, this mod adds several new quests, assassination missions, buildings, enemies, items, and more to the Goodneighbor settlement. There's also somewhere in the neighborhood of 500+ lines of dialog added, greatly extending out your Fallout 4 experience.

Featured ContributorTy splits his time between writing horror fiction and writing about video games. After 25 years of gaming, Ty can firmly say that gaming peaked with Planescape Torment, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a soft spot for games like Baldur's Gate, Fallout: New Vegas, Bioshock Infinite, and Horizon: Zero Dawn. He has previously written for GamerU and MetalUnderground. He also writes for PortalMonkey covering gaming laptops and peripherals&period.

Howdy,Have been eagerly anticipating getting various settlements up and running auto-magically using SS + ROTC + Industrial Revolution. It all works, and is so great it's almost overwhelming.Now, I've not got a great PC. It runs F4 fine, frame rates are good, game has only occasional CTDs. However, I've been noticing my supply lines are breaking and I'm thinking it's mod related, or perhaps even a limitation with my PC. (FWIW I have my graphics set to 'high' and Sim Settlements is set accordingly, per their config wizard.)I set up my supply line network, including about 6 settlements managed by Sim Settlements (and just 1 or 2 that are vanilla). All was well, the various supply meters were filling thanks to the supply lines, happiness was rising everywhere, no more food or water shortages.Then I started to play the actual Fallout game, embarking on a chain of missions you no doubt are familiar with.

Follow the Freedom Trail to the church, then go and rescue Nick V, followed hard on the heels by Go Find Kellogg. All this exploring, fighting and looting took a few hours of game time, and at the end of it, just short of opening up Kellogg's hideout, I said 'I gotta go home' and headed back to the settlements to distribute armor, weapons, junk etc. And cook about 30 pieces of meat. Then I noticed about 3 supply lines were broken!One of them I could understand: The Sunshine Coop farm had been attacked and was damaged, so I could imagine they needed a new settler assigned. But what about the other ones? While rebuilding these supply lines, I noticed that a settler I had just assigned to run between the Red Rocket (L1) and Sanctuary (also L1) immediately stopped their job, about 5 to 10 minutes after I had assigned them.

Aha!What gives? Again, my system is not great, but not bad either. I can probably go with the occasional broken supply line, but it kind of ruins the experience when the breakage is due to a bug or limitation rather than an in-game circumstance (like a battle you actually witness).Cheers, and thanks for any wisdom you may provide.ETA: Do you think IDEK's Logistics mod could auto-magically solve supply chain problems? I've been fixing a lot of mod-related issues with other mods lately, so I suppose one more won't hurt.