Decided to start adding some mods into the mix for Fallout 3. I really want to try out FOOK2, but it's still in beta and there were enough comments about problems on the FOOK2 boards to make me leery. So I'm trying some others first.

Mart's Mutant Mod: This is a fairly major overhaul of the creatures and NPCs in Fallout 3. Things like varying their size / health / damage, or changing how much meat drops off of critters, or making it so that stuff respawns more often. In addition to the base changes, I'm also using Hunting & Looting, Natural Selection, Tougher Traders, Zones Respawn, and the DLC changes. The H&L mod makes it so that NPCs tend to pickup fallen weapons / items off of bodies, which makes things more interesting. Tougher Traders fixes the issue where trade caravans tend to get slaughtered by the wildlife or super mutants past level 18-20. The respawn mod makes it so that a lot of areas that wouldn't normally respawn (subway tunnels, etc) will now respawn after the regular respawn interval.

Needless to say, the wasteland is now a good bit more inhospitable. My primary goals on my first character are to get to "safe" places like Arefu, The Citadel, Big Town, and Agatha's. That allows me to fast-travel from my starting location (Megaton or Tenpenney Towers) to other areas of the map, without wading through everything between. I'm not entirely sure that I'll like the change to respawns in the Metro system, but I haven't been there yet.

Selected Containers Respawn: This mod makes it so that a large number of special containers will now respawn with new contents periodically. So it's still worth poking around in an area on the 2nd or 3rd pass (or more) through.

Maintenance Shed: I tried this before, but there's a new version out so I'm trying it again. It's a very basic "house" mod at the watertower's base that is right near Vault 101. Nothing fancy (other then the garbage can thing), and it's a good place to stash loot until you settle in at Tenpenney Towers or Megaton.

Ammo Dispenser: Adds a way to buy ammo at the Citadel. Doesn't affect the early game because you have to progress through the main quest far enough to get access to the Citadel. It goes hand-in-glove with MMM, because the constant respawn in MMM along with higher numbers of critters in MMM means that you're going to use a lot more ammo. (The alternative is to use the Ammo Press in The Pitt expansion.)

Vanishing Piles: Supposedly, this makes the goo and ash piles that result from using energy / plasma weapons vanish after you leave the cell for a while. Since I plan on using energy weapons with a future character, I've added this to the list.

Longer Days and Longer Nights: Makes day/night cycle take twice as long (real-time) as normal. Which means that when you leave at 6pm, it's probably going to be still dark when you get where you're going. Gives you more (real) time to conduct day or night operations. I haven't detected any side-effects yet. The regular day/night cycle takes 24 minutes in Fallout 3 (60x normal speed), so this gives you 48 minutes per day.

Xepha's Darker Nights: The default night in Fallout 3 is still pretty bright (like a twilight). This makes it a good bit darker, but not pitch black, which raises the immersion factor at night. Note that you'll probably want to also add a Night Vision Goggles mod to supplement this one. (The linked mod works well and is balanced, but drops my frame rate by 10-20%.)

DC Interiors: I'm still using this one and might make it a point to go there first on a new character soon.

...

MMM is definitely the biggest change so far. Especially some of the additional modules that I've loaded (Natural Selection, Hunting and Looting). I watched a firefight between some ghouls and raiders in the alien ship (Mothership Zeta) where the raiders picked up fallen weapons from the aliens and used them. Plus my companions were picking up weapons and other items to complement what they were already carrying.

Natural Selection, OTOH, makes it so that not *everything* in the wasteland wants to eat you. Some critters are just content to ignore you, others prefer to prey on critters rather then you. Mature molerats, however, still make a beeline at you like suicidal masses of moving meat. (Ah well, I guess they've already passed on their genes at that point...)

I decided against adding the "Increased Spawns" portion of MMM for the moment. That makes things significantly more difficult as the critter count is a lot higher.

Right now, I think I'll play through on my new character (Raven) who will probably also turn into a commando sort. Then I may experiment with an energy weapons build along with a heavy weapons build. Once I finish that, I'll be ready to explore other mega-mods like FWE and FOOK2.