Fallout 4 stable load order for the OG xbox that takes into consideration its limitations

After a few days testing and adjusting my load order that I put here the other day I have finally smoothed over the kinks that I was facing. I have removed the last post just to stop people falling into a trap, sorry if anyone did use it. Everything seemed fine until I tried testing that game out in Boston and was faced with freezes constantly. I don't know why my first playthrough ran fine while my second was having problems. What I feel though that may have caused some of things in that area to slow down to a stop could have been things like adding high detailed weapons/armour to the levelled lists or adding too many spawns. These can really make Boston suffer even if the other parts of the game run fine. Anyway I've come up with some compromises and new mods that tries to take the OG consoles limitations into consideration. I have yet to have a freeze in this playthrough but your experiences may vary.

I will add the list then give my thoughts on why I chose certain mods, how to use some of them safely, and try to point you in the right direction if you would like to alter certain things to suit your own preferences. Please make yourself familiar with the guides stickied in this subreddit as they are a massive help, particularly the one linked below, as it goes more in depth about most things you should know about modding. The advice given there is a large part of why I chose some of these mods over my older ones but it is a fairly long read.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aknl_ze1hHUCiTBgz55dSzBBsfvG7iGXlRNIGWObyME/edit#

My load order (two items need instructions on how to install which I will highlight as I go down)

Unofficial fallout 4 patch

NAT - natural and atmospheric

Hudframework

Def_widgets_core

Armour and weapon keywords community resource (all dlc)

Workshop framework

Far - Far away area reform

Skk fast start new game

Boston less enemies

Enemy scaling revamped

The 770 perk tree overhaul

Skk dynamic damage manager

Random encounter manager

Skk settlement attack system

A touch of life - basic

Critical hits outside of vats

Unlimited sprint

Faded glory

Vivid fallout - all in one

Natural and atmospheric nuka world

Natural and atmospheric far harbor

Glowing animals emit light

GFXWL w/o color saturation

Shadow resolution 2048 > 512

Draw distance tweaking

Ugh. Keys.

Def_ui hudframework patch

Def_ui_hud preset by rageYT (compact)

Wattz laser gun

Ammo crafting workbench

Cross_strigidae_bethnet

Factor - modular rifle

Cross_jetpack

Cross jetpack impact dampener

Armorsmith extended (xbox) framework version

Crafting framework

Crafting framework extreme

See through scopes

Wattz laser gun sts patch

Raze my settlement

Aliens of the commonwealth

No borders far harbor

Outfit switcher download but disable

[Xb1] [English] Full dialogue interface

Pip-boy flashlight (brighter)

Bullet time for xbox one download but disable

Skk Instant battleground

Cheat terminal

starting a new game

When you start a new game your pipboy will be invisible when you leave the vault. Tell natural and atmospheric you want to keep vanilla settings when it asks you, you can always activate it when you've finished the beginning start up sequence. All you need to do is save once you've finished creating your character and stood outside vault 111. Go back to your mods and find and disable skk fast start and you should also enable the mods I listed to disable initially, outfit switcher and bullet time. Then just load that last save up and everything should be working.

Advice, why I chose these mods and anything else I feel is relevant to help a smooth playthrough

I'm just going to go down the list for certain mods that might need advice or any additional information I feel is relevant. Some I won't mention as they are pretty much self explanatory, although if you need extra help just message me or add a comment here.

Most mod settings can be found in your pip boys inventory menus, aid and misc or crafted at a chemistry station if they don't show up. You're encouraged to look through each setting before starting your journey to know what things can be changed. Remember to save if you want to try out settings that you feel might break the game.

Natural and atmospherics weathers can lag the game. Usually it won't have any effect but having the climate on in far harbor will cause freezes often. You can just disable the climate while there and can keep your other visual settings on. You can also disable the climate if you're having lag in boston to help ease that. This is like an all in one weather and visuals package so no other mods are needed. Each weather can be separately turned off if you do not like it. It might take a while to adjust the visuals to your liking so just take it slowly. I personally just turn bloom and all the vfx effects off and leave the other settings as they are but you may like it different. Bloom turned off also helps with weird lighting issues found in the institute.

Far away area reform just helps optimise distant objects which should in turn make your game run smoother.

Boston less enemies reduces the spawn points in boston meaning there's less for the game to process in that area.

Enemy scaling revamped helps adjust enemies levels to be more in line with yours. It also removes the caps certain areas have so enemies can be a higher level there if you go there at a high level yourself, areas like around the top part of the map where enemies are usually very easy.

The 770 perk tree overhaul is a mod that adjusts all the perks to not be so overpowered. It's more for characters you plan on getting to a very high level as you need more points to max each perk. You can supplement this with the crafting mod for things that may have been taken out of the skill tree. It's also kinda makes the game fresh as you won't be as familiar with it meaning you'll need to learn what some things do.

Skk dynamic damage manager allows you to alter all incoming and outgoing damage so you can balance the game to your liking. I tried a number of different mods similar but this one seems to work much better than the others and without any noted conflicts or bugs to my list.

Random encounter manager let's you toggle all random encounters in the game. This one is a true blessing in disguise. Outside of the city you can have the settings how you like with encounters around every corner, but within the city you can turn off all random encounters if you find you are lagging there. Within boston there's just too much going on so this reduces that load significantly letting you focus on the quests that take you there. This is an alternative to npc's travel and I find this one is easier to use with very similar effects. You will still get enemies in Boston that aren't random encounters if you turn them off.

Skk settlement attack system allows you to toggle the base games attacks off and add/or replace them with these ones. Very customisable and mainly here to help notify you when an attack is incoming to a much better effect. I feel it's best to turn the base game attacks off leaving this mods attacks run.

A touch of life adds quite a few changes but the main ones I like are its fixes and no borders additions. Should help the game run better all round and feel more immersive with its other additions.

Vivid fallout just optimise textures. You can use optimized vanilla textures if you want but find vivid fallout just looks better while also claiming to be less vram heavy than vanilla.

The glowing animals emit light is a fix for a bug I have personally. My glowing mutant hounds have a weird texture bug that doesn't seem to affect anyone else as I tried to search it online with no luck. I think it's just a blip on my games disc. For some reason this fixes them and adds a cool effect so it's killing two birds with one stone.

GFXWL again is another mod that alters a some visual and object settings to help the game run smoother.

Draw distance tweaking let's you alter different objects and npc's distances before they are shown. I just use it to reduce shadows to 1000 then tell it to never show up again. Should help a bit with performance.

The Wattz laser gun is my alternative to the laser rifle. It adds itself to levelled lists so other enemies can be seen using it after a certain level. I have only put one of these type of weapons that add to the list because if you have too many the game can struggle, especially if they have high graphical models and textures. You can swap this out for another weapon of your liking that adds to the levelled lists. It's very powerful so can be toned down using the crafting mods additions to bring it in line with other weapons. I personally reduce damage by 60%, have fire rate reduced by 80% and use it as long range sniper when you are high enough level to unlock the recon see through scopes.

The cross_strigidae_bethnet is an armour mod that sort of has a Destiny the game feel to it. I chose this as other armour mods can add to the levelled list meaning enemies can be seen wearing them, just more for the game to handle. I'm just avoiding adding too much to those lists so this one is a personal armour. You can swap this for another armour mod that is to your suiting but try to make sure it doesn't add to leveled lists. You might be fine if they do add to them but I'm trying to stay on the safe side due to the OG xbox limitations.

Factor modular rifle is a personal weapon that doesn't add to those mentioned lists. It's quite highly detailed and fairly customisable to your liking. You could swap this out for another stand alone weapon that doesn't add to the lists.

Crafting framework is one of the core elements of this mod list. You can alter so much on weapons and armour if it is able to have a legendary slot. I won't go much into this as I think you should just try and see yourself but I think this should be a staple in most people's mods lists.

Raze my settlement I feel is a better alternative to mods like scrap my settlement. This one seems not to break precombines as it will only take out scrap from settlements that you are allowed to anyway. Other similar mods have been reported to cause serious crashes later on in playthorughs so this one will avoid all of that whilst still being very handy and much less time consuming.

Outfit switcher let's you hotkey a switch so you can change armour load outs on the fly. Its handy for the jetpack if you don't like wearing it all the time. Have one loadout with your usual attire then another with the jetpack on. Now the switch can be used to wear or take off your jetpack.

There are other alternatives for the pipboy flashlight that I found were causing some lag in the game. I believe it was because they created dynamic shadows whereas this one doesn't do that and seems to just project the vanilla light out like a flashlight. You hardly notice shadows anyway so it's not much of a downgrade from the others being offered.

Bullet time can be hot keyed and is an alternative to vats. You can still use vats but this is for people who dont like to rely on that. It does take a little to get used to but once you get the hang of it it's not much of a compromise activating and de-activating it.

Skk instant battleground is just a fun mod. You can activate it to spawn loads of enemies around you that can be adjusted to your liking. Once you've finished slaughtering everything you just go back into it and ask it to clean the battleground so it removes all the dead bodies.

The cheat terminal needs to be handled properly. Use the read me files within it if you're unsure of anything. Somethings may break your game so you will have to go back to an earlier save. I alter what I want in the beginning then mostly leave it alone unless there's a bug that it can fix, usually for bugged quests. On my playthrough I change a number of things to help remove some aspects of the game I don't feel like doing anymore. Some alterations I make are as follows; I max my specials to 10, add hacker and lockpick perks fully then all the base game companions perks as I don't use followers, give myself 2000 crafting mats of everything so I dont need to search every nook and cranny and just focus on the fights (add all materials is located at the bottom of the crafting menu within the cheat terminal), add all base game magazines and bobble heads so I don't need to search for them, add infinite carry weight, enable easy lockpicking and instant terminals, show all map markers then go into the dlc settings and add all the unlocks for the workshops but not any perks from DLC's as these can also cause issues if you obtain them without doing the relevant triggers. These setting let me focus on the fights with some looting for ammo, aid and quest items.

That's it all and again feel free to ask for help if needed or would like some explanations or mods expanded upon. You may also like to add things that alter different aspects of the game that I don't use, like settlement mods for example, but that will be at your own risk and proper testing and research from you will be required. I could always offer my opinion if you're unsure if it will work long term.