(updated November 18, 2009)

Arwen's MOD List load order guide

Why Load Order is Important

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One of the biggest problems in using mods is that they often conflict with one another.  So it's first really important to use mods that are compatible with each other.  But you can even have problems with compatible mods - unless they are loaded in the correct order.

Mods that are loaded first can have some of their changes (to the game) overwritten by the mods that load after them. Fallout 3 loads mods in order of their date, with "newer" mods loading last - overwriting the "older" mods.  But loading mods by date can and does cause major problems.  So how can we override the way in which mods are loaded?

Well, the best way that I know is through the Fallout Mod Manager, which makes this very simple:  all you do is select the esp or esm and drag it up or down in the load order with your mouse (note: always load all the esm's before loading any esp's)

Arwen's Mod Load Order Guide

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The chart below is the load order (from first, to last) that I'm currently using for my installed mods.  Much of this load order is based upon suggestions in the mod's Readme file, or from what others have suggested.  Please understand that my load order may not be perfect - but it does seem to work well in my game (as far as I can tell). 

So feel free to use this as a guide - but only as a guide.  And please email me if you know that any part of this load order needs to be adjusted.

The mods in BOLD  are the ones that are covered on my mods pages (and are linked to those pages). 

Note: esms must all load before any esps

The [1] Category are just my category markers for grouping mods (but some of these types of mod need to load earlier or later).  The number is the order in which I have these groups loading).

The Blue esps are currently deactivated in my game - I've left them on this list only as place holders.