Horizon is a large overhaul mod. It touches just about every aspect of the game -- equipment, enemies, settlements, and more. It's like 50 mods in one. However, because of this, Horizon does not get along with other mods. You should always place Horizon last in your load order, and you should avoid mods that try to do some sort of overhauling themselves, sometimes even if they have an unofficial patch available. For a list of mods that work and don't work well with Horizon, please refer to the Mods section at the end of this guide.
Horizon was designed around the survival difficulty setting, where you're required to eat, drink, and sleep. This puts you on a timer of sorts, and it means you have to stay focused as you play. You shouldn't just wander around randomly. You should follow a path that allows you to get your settlement infrastructure up and running, and that puts you in contact with a doctor. For this reason, Horizon is easier if you've already played through the Fallout 4 campaign once.
This guide was written using Horizon version 1.3.1 and updated for version 1.4.0.
Your Character
Horizon removes almost all SPECIAL bonuses from the equipment in the game. That makes it even more important than usual how you spend your initial attribute points. We detail a 37-point build below. It's 37 points because Horizon gives you 29 points to spend (instead of 21 like in vanilla Fallout 4), you get 1 point right away from the You're Special book in Sanctuary, and you get 1 starting point in each of the attributes (for 7 points total).
Strength (6). Horizon limits the amount of ammunition you find, so you're going to have to do some melee fighting, especially early in the game. Horizon (like vanilla survival) also puts a weight on all items, including ammunition, but it gives you a break in this department through the use of backpacks, cargo bots, perks, and armor mods that increase your carry weight limit. Still, melee damage is important enough that you should strive for a mid-level Strength score.
Perception (6). Many enemies in Horizon are only vulnerable in specific places (like super mutants in their head), so unless you're an excellent shot in real time, you're going to need to rely on VATS during certain fights. Perception increases your accuracy in VATS, making it important for the entire game. The Perception line of perks is also really useful, and you'll want to take the Technologist perk, which requires Perception 7, early on.
Note: If you follow the main questline, then you'll find the Perception Bobblehead (+1 Perception) almost right away.
Endurance (3). You start with extra hit points in Horizon (190 base), and Endurance just adds more (+20 for each point), making it an attribute you can skimp on early in the game. Just make sure you have at least 2 points in Endurance so you can choose the Survivalist perk quickly.
Charisma (9). Charisma is vitally important in everything outside of combat. It gives you more dialogue options, it improves prices with vendors, it increases quest rewards, and more. And unlike the vanilla game, you can't just switch to your Charisma gear for these things (since such gear doesn't exist). If money and role-playing are important to you, then you should keep Charisma high. But if you want to focus more on combat, then you can switch some Charisma points to other attributes instead, like Agility (for better sneaking) or Luck (for faster criticals in VATS).
Intelligence (6). Intelligence doesn't do a lot by itself -- it only increases your experience gained by +3% per point -- but the Science perk requires 6 points, and you'll need Science (along with Ballistics) to build the ZX-1 Experimentation Lab, which is the best way in the game to acquire new weapons.
Agility (5). Agility affects your sneaking ability and your action points (your total AP is 60 + 10 x AGI). This makes it useful in combat, so we'd recommend starting with a mid-level score.
Luck (2). Luck primarily just affects how quickly you fill the critical hit meter in VATS, so it's something you can ignore early in the game. Just make sure you have at least 2 points so you can select the Fortune Finder and Scrounger perks, which increases your chances of finding ammunition and other supplies.
You'll also have to make some tough decisions about perks as you gain levels. Food and radiation damage will be your two biggest problems early in the game, so the Hunter perk (which increases your chances of getting good meat from animals) and the Survivalist perk (which gives you recipes for food and also Rad-Off) are good choices. You should also think about Fortune Finder, Scrounger, and Technologist (which increase your odds of finding useful loot), plus Armorer and Gun Nut (which allow you to improve your armor and guns, respectively).
Finally, don't forget about the VANS perk. Every five levels, you can select it for free for five extra perk points. This helps to make up for Horizon's slower leveling rate, but even with (essentially) two perks per level, you'll probably still wish you had more. Horizon has more useful perks than vanilla Fallout 4.
Early Game
The first thing you should do in Horizon (or any other game of Fallout 4) is explore:
In Vault 111, you can pick up Antibiotics - Basic, a Bandage, a Bobby Pin, two Combat Stimpaks, five Portable Memory Devices (which allow you to save your game), Purified Water, RadAway, a Shoulder Bag, a Trauma Kit, and more.
Outside the vault, in the control building, you'll find a first aid kit.
In Sanctuary you can loot all sorts of stuff, including Grognak the Barbarian #3 and You're Special (which gives you an attribute point) inside your house. You can also visit the root cellar behind the blue house on the northern side of the settlement (two houses away from yours). There you'll find an advanced safe, a high quality first aid kit, three Purified Waters, a Supply Kit (which gives 30 supplies at the Caravan Travel Hub), a Vault-Tec Training Manual (which gives you a perk point), a Weapon Toolkit (which allows you to switch ammo in your current weapon, provided you also have a conversion kit), and more. And don't forget about the dead man and dog by the bridge, and the duffle bag by the Minuteman statue.
You can also find some good stuff directly surrounding Sanctuary. To the south, you can loot the Red Rocket Truck Stop settlement and kill several mole rats, both in the station itself and in the den underneath it (but preferably only after you've gained the Hunter perk). To the north across the river, you can kill a raider and an attack dog and loot four Noodle Cups from their cabin. To the southwest, you can loot four Purified Waters and a first aid kit at a water tower, and also loot a half-buried steamer trunk just to the south of the tower. To the west in the "swamp," you can loot a first aid kit and an Army Helmet at an armored vehicle. And to the east, you can loot a Revolver and some Bobby Pins at a water pump.
That should be enough supplies to get you started.
Horizon Workbenches
Now that you're in shape to start crafting items and building up a settlement, it's a good idea to learn about some of the workbenches that Horizon adds to the game.
The Caravan Travel Hub (found under Architect->Utilities) is how Horizon handles fast travel. You can use a Caravan Travel Hub to travel to any of your settlements or to any major "city" (like Goodneighor or the Prydwen) that you've unlocked. Using the hub costs supplies, which you can create at the Tech Lab or buy at the hub. If you travel from one of your settlements, you'll need to have at least three settlers there for it to work.
The Command Table (found under Architect->Utilities) allows you to send settlers on tasks, once you've assigned some to job workstations, and as long as you're under your current limit for the tasks. To see your limits, open the Command Table to the tasks menu, and look at the X (Y/Z) numbers for each job. These numbers are totals for all of your settlements. X is the number of settlers you have assigned to the job, Y is the current number of settlers you have working on tasks for the job, and Z is the maximum number of settlers you can have working on tasks for the job. You can improve your limits by increasing how many successful and specialty settlements you have. But note that the job workstations are mostly cosmetic. They add happiness to your settlements, but they don't actually produce anything. So you should only assign settlers to job workstations once you have settlers who aren't doing anything useful.
The Farming Workbench (found under Architect->Farming) allows you to create fertilizer using unwanted food, and also domesticate wild plants by combining them with bones and fertilizer.
The Mailbox (found under Architect->Utilities) is where you receive mail from time to time. Mail can come from companions, from completing quests, or from learning perks. Some mail messages contain loot, so you should always build a mailbox and check it every so often.
The Market Trading Terminal (found under Crafting) is where you can find deals for certain items, but only once you've built up your Trading skill.
The Resource Station (found under Architect->Utilities) allows you to manage your farms, production facilities (like water purifiers), shared storage containers, and cargo bots. It's where you place Maintenance Kits, Fuel and Fertilizer for your farms and facilities, plus cargo bot Transmitter Chips so you can increase your carry weight. Maintenance Kits and Transmitter Chips are both crafted at the Tech Lab.
The Tech Lab (found under Crafting) is Horizon's main crafting bench. This is where you craft items unique to Horizon, like Auto-Hackers, Cargo Bots, and Supply Kits. This is also where you craft (consumable) items that increase the technology and trading levels of your settlements.
The Training Table (found under Architect->Utilities) is where you pick your combat specializations. You'll be able to choose two -- one at level 15 and another at level 30.
The Weapons Lab (found under Crafting) is where you assemble and disassemble ammunition, and also build unique weapons for your companions.
The ZX-1 Experimentation Lab (found under Crafting) is where you reverse engineer regular weapons so you can build them yourself. Then as your skill with the lab grows, and with special metal alloys (that you find during your explorations), you can eventually craft weapons that are better than vanilla weapons, with improved range, damage, and more.
Expanding Out
Once you've collected some supplies, you'll need to put them to use, setting up an infrastructure that can keep you fed, hydrated and safe over the rest of the game. You're not required to use settlements in the game, but having at least one big settlement as your base of operations is the easiest way to organize things.
For where to place your main settlement, Sanctuary is the easiest answer since the main questline will send you there anyway, and since it has lots of room for expansion. However, later on you might want to create a settlement more centrally located, to reduce your travel times.
Water
Unlike vanilla Fallout 4, just placing water pumps in a settlement won't cause settlers to produce Purified Water. To get Purified Water, you need to construct Water Purifiers and run them via the Resource Management table.
To build a Water Purifier, you'll need to acquire Filters. If you're lucky, then you might find some, either as lootable objects or for sale from a vendor. Failing that, you'll need to craft them at the Robotics Lab, which means you'll either need rank 1 of the Technologist perk so you can build them yourself, or rank 1 of the Settler Skill: Engineering perk (gained from sending your settlers on engineering tasks) so you can use the more expensive contracted work option.
Once you've built one or more Water Purifiers, you'll need to build the Resource Management table to run them. The recipe for the Resource Management table requires a Cargo Bot. To build one, you'll need to use the Robotics Lab, and you'll either need rank 1 of the Robotics Expert perk to build it yourself, or you'll need to use the more expensive contracted work option.
Once you have a Resource Management table in place, you'll need to supply it with Maintenance Kits for the Water Purifiers to run. One Maintenance Kit will allow one Water Purifier to produce one bottle of Purified Water over the course of one day. So obviously you'll need lots of Maintenance Kits, which means you'll need lots of Tool Kits, so you should always collect any tools you find during your travels.
This might sound complicated, but once you have at least three Water Purifiers up and running, they'll produce all of the Purified Water that you'll need over the rest of the game, provided that you can keep them supplied with Maintenance Kits. That'll solve all your problems with water, and you might be able to build all of the necessary equipment while you're still level 2.
Note: There's a limit of how much purified water you can produce each day. It's equal to 4 + successful settlements.
Food
To adequately feed yourself, you'll need to eat food with a total value of 100 caps every day. However, there isn't an easy solution for this like there is for Purified Water. Early in the game you'll probably have a tough time acquiring enough meat to cook your own meals, but if you eat pre-war food, then you're going to take a lot of radiation damage and eventually need help from a doctor.
So grab the Hunter perk as quickly as possible. This will improve the meat you get from killing bugs and animals. You should also make your way to towns and shopkeepers quickly. In Diamond City, the meat merchant Polly might have enough stock to keep you full for a couple of days. At Abernathy Farm, Connie will sell you packs of Tatos and Melons for a relatively cheap price. You can also harvest the crops at the farm for some free Tatos and Melons.
Other good sources of meat include the Red Rocket Truck Stop (mole rats), the Starlight Drive-In (more mole rats), and the Robotics Disposal Ground (even more mole rats). Once you're powerful enough to take on super mutants, you'll also be able to loot their meat bags, which will supply you with lots of random meat.
New in version 1.3, you can spend Fertilizer at the Resource Management table to grow specific kinds of vegetables. So, for example, if you really want Razorgrain for Noodle Cups, and if you have Razorgrain plants in your settlements, then you can stock the management table with Fertilizer to increase your Razorgrain yield.
Radiation
Your radiation bar has 1000 points, and the more radiation damage you take, the less health you'll have available. Worse, RadAway will only heal 150 points of radiation and Rad-Off will only heal 100 points, and you won't find very many of either. This can put you in a hole early in the game, where you're at an uncomfortably low health level because you can't remove enough radiation.
The best solution for radiation is to just see a doctor (see below). Doctors are cheaper and easier than trying to use drugs for the same effect. Otherwise, you should try to avoid taking radiation damage at all. Keeping a hazmat suit around is a good idea, and early in the game you can use a vault suit (10 rad resistance) and a gas mask (also 10 rad resistance) for at least a little bit of protection. Also try to avoid ingesting irradiated food and water.
Doctors
With all of the illnesses, radiation damage, and health damage that you can incur, it's important to gain access to a doctor as quickly as possible. There are three ways to go about this:
You can travel to a major town -- like Diamond City or Covenant -- and visit the doctor there. However, these towns are far enough away from Sanctuary that you might have trouble getting to them before you really need a doctor's services.
You can meet a random doctor. You can sometimes meet one in the parking lot attached to Concord or in a house along the route to Graygarden.
You can build a first aid station in one of your settlements. This used to be difficult because you'd need perks to unlock the construction. But now you just need Vendor Contracts, which you can buy from wandering merchants like Carla (who visits Sanctuary) and Lucas (who visits Tenpines Bluff). Once you have doctors in your settlements, healing is a lot easier.
Weapons
You'll find lots of weapons when you kill enemies, but they'll almost always be in poor condition. Sometimes, you can repair these weapons at the Weapons Workbench, but a better solution is to reverse engineer them at the ZX-1 Experimentation Lab (which unlocks their recipe), and then build them anew.
When using the ZX-1 Experimentation Lab, you first need the perks and resources required to craft the basic model of the weapon, and then you need to pick one of three metal alloys to produce extra benefits. Your weapon crafting skill (gained from reverse engineering, crafting weapons at the lab, or using Weapon Tinker Kits from the Tech Lab) controls how powerful the weapon can be. The higher your crafting skill, the more alloys you can add, which increases the damage (by 2% for each alloy) and the experimentation points (by 10 for each alloy). Experimentation points allow you to improve things like the weapon's range, accuracy, and AP cost.
Horizon also allows you to switch the firing mode of your weapons, plus the ammunition being used, while you're in the field. This is accomplished through the use of a Weapon Toolkit, which you can add to your favorites so you can access it via the press of a button. To go along with the toolkit, you'll also need a conversion kit for the type of weapon you're using. Both the toolkit and conversion kits can be built at the Tech Lab.
Ballistic Weave
Horizon treats ballistic weave a little differently than the vanilla game. You'll have two ways to get it. The first is to increase the crafting skill of your settlers (via tasks and the Command Table). Once their crafting skill is over 25, you'll be able to use contracted work at the Tech Lab to craft Ballistic Weave Mk1 and Insulated Weave Mk 1. From there you should be able to insert the weaves into your underarmor / clothing and hat / helmet items.
The other method is the same as the vanilla method. After completing the first DIA Cache / Jackpot quest for PAM at Railroad HQ, Tinker Tom will start selling clothing items containing Ballistic Weave Mk 1. You'll then need to buy one of the clothing items, take it to an armor workbench, and select "No Weave" for it. This will put the weave into your inventory, which will allow you to place it in a different item.
When upgrading ballistic weave of either type, you'll need to remove it from the item it's in (by selecting "No Weave") and then select the next version you can craft (if any). This will place the improved weave back in the item. Nicely, this means you'll only need two sets of ballistic weave for your entire game (one for your hats and one for your clothing), and you'll be able to transfer them to new items if you find something better.
Metallic Alloys
When crafting and modding weapons and armor, you'll need lots of special metallic alloys. You'll find these alloys in a variety of places. Legendary enemies can drop them (in their prototype items); you can find them in appliances (like cigarette machines and milk vending machines), provided you have the Technologist perk; a lot of the medallions from the Fortune Finder perk will have them; name-brand junk items (like luxobrew coffee pots) can contain them; and regular junk items (including high-powered magnets and biometric scanners) can contain them.
Exploration
The world gets more dangerous the farther away you get from Sanctuary, but the rewards get better, too. At some point you'll also need to reach a major city just for the shopkeepers, quests, and doctors. The main questline will send you south from Sanctuary, where you'll encounter Concord, the Drumlin Diner, and Graygarden while making your way to Diamond City. This can be a dangerous path since downtown Boston is filled with super mutants, robots and raiders. An alternative is to head southeast from Sanctuary and make your way to Covenant. Covenant is smaller than Diamond City, but it's easier to get to, and it has a general shop and a doctor available.
While you're exploring, you'll have to be careful about the enemies you tackle. Super mutants and robots are much tougher in Horizon than they are in the vanilla game, and in the early goings you might have to run away rather than face them. You should also get used to using VATS, if for no other reason than to learn the vulnerabilities of your enemies. Once you've learned that super mutants are vulnerable in their head, protectrons in their legs, and Mr. Handy robots in their eyes, they're not quite as difficult to kill, and you won't have to spend as many bullets in the process.
Mods
You have to be careful with Horizon. It touches just about every aspect of the game, so if you try to mix in other mods, sometimes they'll work, and sometimes they'll cause problems -- but often enough the problems are subtle, and you might not even realize they're there. For example, if you seem like you're almost invulnerable, or if enemies take an excessive number of hits to kill, then you have a conflict. Horizon is designed so combat makes sense and there aren't any "bullet sponges," so if you're seeing the opposite, that's one of the easiest ways to tell that one of your other mods is causing a problem.
Note: If you want to see a video about how combat should look early in the game, click here.
Below we'll list some of the mods that do and don't work well with Horizon.
Mods That Work Well
Armor and Weapons Keywords Community Resource (AWKCR) and Armorsmith Extended (AE). These mods have official Horizon patches that you can include when you install Horizon.
Armor / clothing mods. These usually work fine except for balance. Underarmor items shouldn't have SPECIAL bonuses, and they shouldn't include much in the way of defense. If you can't find an unofficial patch for an armor mod, then you can always use less ballistic weave on it so it fits in better, or you can use FO4Edit yourself to reduce its stats.
Beantown Interiors. Just be sure to use the included holotape to reduce the amount of loot it drops.
Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Enhancer (CBBE) plus BodySlide and Outfit Studio.
Darker Nights and True Nights.
DEF_UI with both DEF_HUD and DEF_INV included. You need both of these mods so information is presented correctly. However, while Horizon includes a DEF_HUD xml file, you can use any HUD preset you want.
Full Dialogue Interface.
Homemaker. This mod has an official Horizon patch that you can include when you install Horizon.
HUDFramework.
Improved Map with Visible Roads.
Looksmenu, including the Customization Compendium. Related mods that change skin textures (like Valkyr Female Face and Body Textures), add facial options (like The Eyes of Beauty), or add hair options (like Ponytail Hairstyles by Azar) are also fine.
Official Horizon Weapon Merge Pack and Crossbows of the Commonwealth. These weapon mods are officially supported by Horizon.
Outfit Switcher.
Pip-Boy Flashlight.
Place Everywhere.
Scrap Everything. Horizon includes two official patches for this mod, one for only scrapping some extra things, and another where you can scrap everything.
Sim Settlements. This mod has an official Horizon patch that you can include when you install Horizon. But you have to be careful here. The main mod has some balance issues, and a lot of the associated mods aren't balanced at all.
True Storms.
Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch. This mod doesn't interfere with Horizon, but it's not clear if it actually helps, either.
Vivid Fallout.
Note: Horizon includes ways for you to fast travel and save your game, so mods for those things aren't absolutely necessary. However, it's a good idea to pick up a mod that unlocks the console during survival mode (like Survival Mode Console Enabler). If you really don't want to be restricted in your saves, then there are options for this as well (like Survival Quick Save).
Mods That Don't Work Well
Any mod that changes companions, even just their face, requires a patch.
Overhaul mods are likely to cause problems. Plus, most areas of the game, including armor, factions, loot and more, have already been overhauled in Horizon.
Quest mods are likely to be unbalanced.
Weapon mods are likely to cause problems, and they're more difficult to adjust than armor mods, so you should always wait for a patch.
Horizon also includes clean reflex sights, faster terminals, and personalized beds, so mods adding those things aren't needed.
Excellent guide, swcarter. I think this will really help out new players! Hopefully Zawinul will come along and add this to the Articles section. A little explanation about the Scrap Storage system might help out newcomers as well.
And as far as Mods that work with horizon: Easy Lockpicking and Easy Hacking both work fine (this question comes up sometimes) Darker Nights (needs no patch) Rain of Brass (needs no patch) Auto eat and Drink in Survival (needs no patch, does require SKSE) PipBoy Flashlight (needs no patch) Easy to See Glowing Stuff (needs no patch) Cartographers Map Markers (Needs no patch, but turn the XP gain down or off in the holotape) Cthulhuandme's mods (which add FACIAL variety to raiders, gunners and Diamond city guards) all seem to work fine (confirmation needed) Glowing Animals Emit Light (only one record needs forwarding, the Behemouth) ChemRedux (only two records need forwarding, Nifs for psychojet and Buffjet)
Might be worth mentioning the Root Cellar as I picked up a bunch of very useful supplies. Also, there's a loot trunk next to the water tower near Red Rocket. It's near the bushes there, half dug into the ground. Heaps of useful items which can respawn quite a few times early on.
Great guide, I'm sure zawinul would appreciate this!
He did mention it. "You can also visit the root cellar behind the blue house on the northern side of the settlement (two houses away from yours). There you'll find an advanced safe, a high quality first aid kit, three Purified Waters, a Supply Kit (which gives 30 supplies at the Caravan Travel Hub), a Vault-Tec Training Manual (which gives you a perk point), a Weapon Toolkit (which allows you to switch ammo in your current weapon, provided you also have a conversion kit), and more."
Great little guide. To be honest I’ve been using Horizon since the really early days and started a fresh save on 1.3.1 and it even helped me, never thought of going to covenant for a doctor!
A few mods I can suggest for quality of life in the game are:
Locksmith - you have no idea how useful it is in combat to be able to barricade yourself behind a door for a bit of breathing space when you’re in a difficult situation. Definitely a must have.
Natural and atmospheric commonwealth - just makes everything so much more atmospheric, especially as nights are the most realistic I’ve seen in the game. A lot of people seem to avoid it but it’s so polished now with the new release and it looks beautiful paired with vogue enb.
Pip boy flashlight/tactical flashlights is a must paired with nac also if you want to lurk around in the dark in a far more immersive way.
Ultra interior lighting - also must have going alongside nac, works really well with t for the interiors as nac gives all the lights new drop off and accurate colours, so with shadows it’s awesome.
Moveable workbench - great as it also gives your settlements more build size via a script, so it’s also safe for the game if you choose to get rid of it. It’s aactually quite useful to be able to move the workbench.
Thematic and practical - a nice settlement item pack for immersive scrappy looking tables, chairs, pretty much averything, HIGHLY recommended.
Diamond city expansion is also compatible, and the mod author is due to update the mod and he also uses horizon so the newest version will be fully compatible.
I added a bit about shared storage. I also added in a couple more mods, but there are just so many that work and don't work with Horizon, that could be a guide all by itself. Maybe if people keep posting mods that they've had success with, that'll work in about the same way (assuming people read the replies along with the guide).
Sleep or Save is a great quality of life mod. (I just disable the save-o chem in foedit....or just don't use it.)
Reasonably Harder Lockpicking is good too. Horizon changes no lockpicking settings.
No Scope Fade in.
Third Person Aim Down Sights.
Automatically Lowered Weapons.
No More Cash Register Sounds.
Power Armor Animation Changes (Fast Enter)
Power Armor Fast Enter and Exit (Fast Exit)
QuickTrade.
Hush Dogmeat by fadingsignal
Also to adjust your vats if you find it too powerful and you don't like VAFS just change these in foedit in settings: (These settings will let you take full damage in vats, and you can change the vats slow down time to what you want. (I use 50%) Vanilla is 4%.) fVatsPlayerDamageMult 1 fVatsTimeMultTargetSelect .5 The mod Better Locational Damage has some settings for Vats...you can use his if you install his mod and then take the better vats esp out.
My two cents: get Dogmeat ASAP, there are three reasons, he is more valuable now.
1. He runs in front of you, many enemies will detect and attack him first, so you do not run into ambushes as often or at least get some seconds to run to cover.
2. His ability to bite enemies and keep them from shooting you and lock them in place for a couple of seconds is priceless. I stopped counting how many raiders I shot in the head in this manner.
3. He can fetch items that are placed in radiated spaces, like the Army Helmet in the APC west of Sanctuary and the Damaged FC under the Red Rocket. And as swcarter wrote, dem rads are really expensive and hard to get rid off.
I still think the scrap storage system could use a little more explanation, if you (or anyone else) is up to it. Like all Alloys should go in the Scrap Storage. Actually, anything you want to build from the x-1 weapons lab only pulls from Scrap storage, so it's best to keep extra aluminum and adhesive and things like that in there as well.
The Beantown Interiors crash was happening when clicking around in the pipboy. I decided to give it another shot, and I had better luck this time. I used the Horizon patch from the files section on the Beantown Interiors page this time, and I disabled all Beantown Interiors quests using the holotape, and set the loot to hardcore mode. I also used the optimization patch, which I wasn't before. Since then, I've had zero crashes!
For others looking for compatible mods, here is my mod list, which seems to be working perfectly so far (through level 16):
Alternative Chameleon Visuals - Alternative Version - Disable Chameleon Flash ONLY Armor and Weapons Keyword Community Resource (AWKCR) Armorsmith Extended - Armorsmith All DLCs Patch v3.3 Armorsmith Extended - Armorsmith Extended v3.31 Beantown Interiors Project - Beantown Interiors Full Optimization Patch (Requires Far Harbor Nuka-World Vault-Tec Workshop) Beantown Interiors Project - Beantown Interiors Horizon Patch by OGGrinskin9 Beantown Interiors Project - The Beantown interiors Project Button Lowered Weapons - First and Third Person - Button Lowered Weapons Crossbows of the Commonwealth - Crossbows of the Commonwealth 1.4Unassigned Darker Nights Darker Nights No Fog Glow Fix for Far Harbor DLC DEF_UI Fallout 4 Enhanced Color Correction - F4ECC - 1.2 Fallout Texture Overhaul PipBoy (Pip-Boy) UHD 4K Fr4nsson's Light Tweaks - Fr4nsson's Light Tweaks V1.6 Full Dialogue Interface High Res DLC Black Face Fix - High Res DLC Black Face FixUnassigned Horizon HUDFramework - 01. DEF_UI Compatibility Patch HUDFramework - HUDFramework 1.0f Improved Map with Visible Roads Lever Action Reload Fix (Another) - Lever Action Reload Overhaul V 1.4 Official Horizon Weapon Merge Pack - Horizon Weapon Merge Pack v1.3.0 Place (Fallout4 1.9.4 - latest release)-9424-1-16-8-940? RAW INPUT - The Ultimate Mouse Sensitivity FixUnassigned Realistic Ragdoll Force - Realistic Reverb and Ambiance Overhaul - Reverb and Ambiance Overhaul - ALL DLC Scrap Everything Shaikujin's Better warning for settlements being attacked Sim Settlements Sleep Or Save - Sleep Or Save Small Map Markers True Storms - Wasteland Edition (Thunder-Rain-Weather Redone) - Nuka World Add-On (with TS Far Harbor Compatibility) True Storms: Wasteland Edition v1.4 Vivid Fallout - Landscapes Vivid Fallout - Landscapes - Textures in HD - ORIGINAL SIZE - LOWER RESOLUTION - Vivid Fallout - Landscapes - Best Choice Update
@COMATOSEDRAGON: You can use the Resource Management table to tell the ZX-1 lab to look in a particular workshop for supplies. So you can just pick the one from your main settlement and drop everything there.
Something about mods though......I've used place everywhere with horizon forever......without any obvious issues.
Is it just an balance issue or does it have a particular effect on the Horizon/game itself?
And I use the unofficial patch because without it, my game has too many missions that are unplayable. Even with uninstalling & reinstalling the game.
I do, however, try to keep extra mods down to a severe minimum.
I am wondering though.....been having an issue where if I use VATS too often or in a bulky fight it freezes my game. It becomes more frequent as the game progresses. Drives me nuts. So if place everywhere & scrap everything are the possible cause.......then I'll dump them like hot rocks. I think horizon now has it's own version scrap everything & with architect I don't need place everywhere for sanctuary home repairs. I also found a tidy mod for the castle walls, which was the other reason I've kept place everywhere, that now makes it unnecessary.
Do want to thank you for the guide because I took a break from Horizon for several months....and you answered quite a lot of questions I had. No doubt it will be a big help to someone just getting started. I'd have loved it back then. Thanks.
I have been playing with Horizion for a while now, but there is still something unknown for me at the moment : How do you specialize a settlement ?
In reference to that : The Command Table allows you to send settlers on tasks., once you've assigned some to job workstations, and as long as you're under your current limit for the tasks. To see your limits, open the Command Table to the tasks menu, and look at the X (Y/Z) numbers for each job. These numbers are totals for all of your settlements. X is the number of settlers you have assigned to the job, Y is the number of settlers you have working on tasks for the job, and Z is the limit to the number of settlers you can have working on tasks for the job. You can improve your limits by increasing how many successful and specialty settlements you have
Under resources you'll find a tab for jobs, in there you'll find specific work benches & they tell you what category they are under. (hunter, engineer, ect) Took me a bit to find them too.
I have been searching relentlessly for this information since Horizon was first released as well, with no luck. If anyone has this info it would be appreciated.
It's explained in the 1.2.0 Patch Notes. That thread is generally where you'll want to look for detailed info. It's not super easy, but searching the page with ctrl+f helps.
To briefly explain how settlement specializations work: basically, in order to qualify as a particular sort of settlement, that settlement needs to reach a certain (pretty high) number for a particular settlement stat. I'll just copy+paste the exact requirements from the patch notes:
Settlement Classifications are: - Farming Communities: Requires 70+ food production - Military Outposts: Requires 150+ Defense - Trading Markets: Requires 25+ Trading Income - Water Treatment Plants: Requires 100+ Purified Water Supply - Industrial Park: Requires 200+ Power - Recreational Parks: Requires 400+ Bonus Happiness
Can someone please tell me how to get rifles to be automatic again. I don't understand how the system is ment to work. I have the Tool kit and the conversion kit, but it still dosn't work on any rifle :( To play the hole game without automatic rifles is very annoying. Please somebody just tell me what I need to do to get it to work as intendet.
Is there a resource station directly on the prydwen, or another possibility to have acces to my stuff while working on a power armor frame on the Prydwen?
Question, the vanilla armors that were tweaked with this mod; is there a bodyslide for them to fit my character or is my character going to always go from curvy to paris hilton every time?
It has probably been said before but the Scrap Everything Patch conflicts with All Settlements Extended ASE. I now have to put ASE last in the load order. Every time I use Loot, I have to put it back last in line. Isn't it possible that the Patch doesn't conflict with ASE? I know it is not a bug, but it is not ideal. ASE should not be last in line. Loot usually places it near the middle of my load order. But besides this little annoying thingie, Horizon is awesome. Thanx a lot for it, Zawinul. You're one hell of a modder. EDIT: Ehhh, don't use LOOT. I read that just now. So problem solved.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but the immersive fast travel mods of Zawinul are also perfect for this game. At vanilla it works well but if you want to make it more Horizon-ish, you can use the patch by RickTheNexus.
I say this. i appreciate the effort but i really find the perk system annoying. How do i uninstall this mod? I really really reeeaaally want to get rid of it. I also worked 5 days and nights to get the game working with mods, then steam ruined it for me with the last patch at the first night, where i finally got it working! Uuuuhrg! But Horizon really is a ball buster. "you cnat do this you cant get that! Yada yada yada" I just want to have fun. So how do i uninstall this mod without ruining my fallout 4?
Uninstall FO4 and then reinstall. You can make a local backup of your FO4 in Steam next time you need to reinstall it so you don't have to download it again.
So I have 25 tasks assigned, and cannot assign any more tasks because I reached the task assignment limit. Is there any way to increase this limit? This is for settler missions.
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New Player Guide (55 comments)
Introduction
Horizon is a large overhaul mod. It touches just about every aspect of the game -- equipment, enemies, settlements, and more. It's like 50 mods in one. However, because of this, Horizon does not get along with other mods. You should always place Horizon last in your load order, and you should avoid mods that try to do some sort of overhauling themselves, sometimes even if they have an unofficial patch available. For a list of mods that work and don't work well with Horizon, please refer to the Mods section at the end of this guide.
Horizon was designed around the survival difficulty setting, where you're required to eat, drink, and sleep. This puts you on a timer of sorts, and it means you have to stay focused as you play. You shouldn't just wander around randomly. You should follow a path that allows you to get your settlement infrastructure up and running, and that puts you in contact with a doctor. For this reason, Horizon is easier if you've already played through the Fallout 4 campaign once.
This guide was written using Horizon version 1.3.1 and updated for version 1.4.0.
Your Character
Horizon removes almost all SPECIAL bonuses from the equipment in the game. That makes it even more important than usual how you spend your initial attribute points. We detail a 37-point build below. It's 37 points because Horizon gives you 29 points to spend (instead of 21 like in vanilla Fallout 4), you get 1 point right away from the You're Special book in Sanctuary, and you get 1 starting point in each of the attributes (for 7 points total).
Strength (6). Horizon limits the amount of ammunition you find, so you're going to have to do some melee fighting, especially early in the game. Horizon (like vanilla survival) also puts a weight on all items, including ammunition, but it gives you a break in this department through the use of backpacks, cargo bots, perks, and armor mods that increase your carry weight limit. Still, melee damage is important enough that you should strive for a mid-level Strength score.
Perception (6). Many enemies in Horizon are only vulnerable in specific places (like super mutants in their head), so unless you're an excellent shot in real time, you're going to need to rely on VATS during certain fights. Perception increases your accuracy in VATS, making it important for the entire game. The Perception line of perks is also really useful, and you'll want to take the Technologist perk, which requires Perception 7, early on.
Note: If you follow the main questline, then you'll find the Perception Bobblehead (+1 Perception) almost right away.
Endurance (3). You start with extra hit points in Horizon (190 base), and Endurance just adds more (+20 for each point), making it an attribute you can skimp on early in the game. Just make sure you have at least 2 points in Endurance so you can choose the Survivalist perk quickly.
Charisma (9). Charisma is vitally important in everything outside of combat. It gives you more dialogue options, it improves prices with vendors, it increases quest rewards, and more. And unlike the vanilla game, you can't just switch to your Charisma gear for these things (since such gear doesn't exist). If money and role-playing are important to you, then you should keep Charisma high. But if you want to focus more on combat, then you can switch some Charisma points to other attributes instead, like Agility (for better sneaking) or Luck (for faster criticals in VATS).
Intelligence (6). Intelligence doesn't do a lot by itself -- it only increases your experience gained by +3% per point -- but the Science perk requires 6 points, and you'll need Science (along with Ballistics) to build the ZX-1 Experimentation Lab, which is the best way in the game to acquire new weapons.
Agility (5). Agility affects your sneaking ability and your action points (your total AP is 60 + 10 x AGI). This makes it useful in combat, so we'd recommend starting with a mid-level score.
Luck (2). Luck primarily just affects how quickly you fill the critical hit meter in VATS, so it's something you can ignore early in the game. Just make sure you have at least 2 points so you can select the Fortune Finder and Scrounger perks, which increases your chances of finding ammunition and other supplies.
You'll also have to make some tough decisions about perks as you gain levels. Food and radiation damage will be your two biggest problems early in the game, so the Hunter perk (which increases your chances of getting good meat from animals) and the Survivalist perk (which gives you recipes for food and also Rad-Off) are good choices. You should also think about Fortune Finder, Scrounger, and Technologist (which increase your odds of finding useful loot), plus Armorer and Gun Nut (which allow you to improve your armor and guns, respectively).
Finally, don't forget about the VANS perk. Every five levels, you can select it for free for five extra perk points. This helps to make up for Horizon's slower leveling rate, but even with (essentially) two perks per level, you'll probably still wish you had more. Horizon has more useful perks than vanilla Fallout 4.
Early Game
The first thing you should do in Horizon (or any other game of Fallout 4) is explore:
In Vault 111, you can pick up Antibiotics - Basic, a Bandage, a Bobby Pin, two Combat Stimpaks, five Portable Memory Devices (which allow you to save your game), Purified Water, RadAway, a Shoulder Bag, a Trauma Kit, and more.
Outside the vault, in the control building, you'll find a first aid kit.
In Sanctuary you can loot all sorts of stuff, including Grognak the Barbarian #3 and You're Special (which gives you an attribute point) inside your house. You can also visit the root cellar behind the blue house on the northern side of the settlement (two houses away from yours). There you'll find an advanced safe, a high quality first aid kit, three Purified Waters, a Supply Kit (which gives 30 supplies at the Caravan Travel Hub), a Vault-Tec Training Manual (which gives you a perk point), a Weapon Toolkit (which allows you to switch ammo in your current weapon, provided you also have a conversion kit), and more. And don't forget about the dead man and dog by the bridge, and the duffle bag by the Minuteman statue.
You can also find some good stuff directly surrounding Sanctuary. To the south, you can loot the Red Rocket Truck Stop settlement and kill several mole rats, both in the station itself and in the den underneath it (but preferably only after you've gained the Hunter perk). To the north across the river, you can kill a raider and an attack dog and loot four Noodle Cups from their cabin. To the southwest, you can loot four Purified Waters and a first aid kit at a water tower, and also loot a half-buried steamer trunk just to the south of the tower. To the west in the "swamp," you can loot a first aid kit and an Army Helmet at an armored vehicle. And to the east, you can loot a Revolver and some Bobby Pins at a water pump.
That should be enough supplies to get you started.
Horizon Workbenches
Now that you're in shape to start crafting items and building up a settlement, it's a good idea to learn about some of the workbenches that Horizon adds to the game.
The Caravan Travel Hub (found under Architect->Utilities) is how Horizon handles fast travel. You can use a Caravan Travel Hub to travel to any of your settlements or to any major "city" (like Goodneighor or the Prydwen) that you've unlocked. Using the hub costs supplies, which you can create at the Tech Lab or buy at the hub. If you travel from one of your settlements, you'll need to have at least three settlers there for it to work.
The Command Table (found under Architect->Utilities) allows you to send settlers on tasks, once you've assigned some to job workstations, and as long as you're under your current limit for the tasks. To see your limits, open the Command Table to the tasks menu, and look at the X (Y/Z) numbers for each job. These numbers are totals for all of your settlements. X is the number of settlers you have assigned to the job, Y is the current number of settlers you have working on tasks for the job, and Z is the maximum number of settlers you can have working on tasks for the job. You can improve your limits by increasing how many successful and specialty settlements you have. But note that the job workstations are mostly cosmetic. They add happiness to your settlements, but they don't actually produce anything. So you should only assign settlers to job workstations once you have settlers who aren't doing anything useful.
The Farming Workbench (found under Architect->Farming) allows you to create fertilizer using unwanted food, and also domesticate wild plants by combining them with bones and fertilizer.
The Mailbox (found under Architect->Utilities) is where you receive mail from time to time. Mail can come from companions, from completing quests, or from learning perks. Some mail messages contain loot, so you should always build a mailbox and check it every so often.
The Market Trading Terminal (found under Crafting) is where you can find deals for certain items, but only once you've built up your Trading skill.
The Resource Station (found under Architect->Utilities) allows you to manage your farms, production facilities (like water purifiers), shared storage containers, and cargo bots. It's where you place Maintenance Kits, Fuel and Fertilizer for your farms and facilities, plus cargo bot Transmitter Chips so you can increase your carry weight. Maintenance Kits and Transmitter Chips are both crafted at the Tech Lab.
The Tech Lab (found under Crafting) is Horizon's main crafting bench. This is where you craft items unique to Horizon, like Auto-Hackers, Cargo Bots, and Supply Kits. This is also where you craft (consumable) items that increase the technology and trading levels of your settlements.
The Training Table (found under Architect->Utilities) is where you pick your combat specializations. You'll be able to choose two -- one at level 15 and another at level 30.
The Weapons Lab (found under Crafting) is where you assemble and disassemble ammunition, and also build unique weapons for your companions.
The ZX-1 Experimentation Lab (found under Crafting) is where you reverse engineer regular weapons so you can build them yourself. Then as your skill with the lab grows, and with special metal alloys (that you find during your explorations), you can eventually craft weapons that are better than vanilla weapons, with improved range, damage, and more.
Expanding Out
Once you've collected some supplies, you'll need to put them to use, setting up an infrastructure that can keep you fed, hydrated and safe over the rest of the game. You're not required to use settlements in the game, but having at least one big settlement as your base of operations is the easiest way to organize things.
For where to place your main settlement, Sanctuary is the easiest answer since the main questline will send you there anyway, and since it has lots of room for expansion. However, later on you might want to create a settlement more centrally located, to reduce your travel times.
Water
Unlike vanilla Fallout 4, just placing water pumps in a settlement won't cause settlers to produce Purified Water. To get Purified Water, you need to construct Water Purifiers and run them via the Resource Management table.
To build a Water Purifier, you'll need to acquire Filters. If you're lucky, then you might find some, either as lootable objects or for sale from a vendor. Failing that, you'll need to craft them at the Robotics Lab, which means you'll either need rank 1 of the Technologist perk so you can build them yourself, or rank 1 of the Settler Skill: Engineering perk (gained from sending your settlers on engineering tasks) so you can use the more expensive contracted work option.
Once you've built one or more Water Purifiers, you'll need to build the Resource Management table to run them. The recipe for the Resource Management table requires a Cargo Bot. To build one, you'll need to use the Robotics Lab, and you'll either need rank 1 of the Robotics Expert perk to build it yourself, or you'll need to use the more expensive contracted work option.
Once you have a Resource Management table in place, you'll need to supply it with Maintenance Kits for the Water Purifiers to run. One Maintenance Kit will allow one Water Purifier to produce one bottle of Purified Water over the course of one day. So obviously you'll need lots of Maintenance Kits, which means you'll need lots of Tool Kits, so you should always collect any tools you find during your travels.
This might sound complicated, but once you have at least three Water Purifiers up and running, they'll produce all of the Purified Water that you'll need over the rest of the game, provided that you can keep them supplied with Maintenance Kits. That'll solve all your problems with water, and you might be able to build all of the necessary equipment while you're still level 2.
Note: There's a limit of how much purified water you can produce each day. It's equal to 4 + successful settlements.
Food
To adequately feed yourself, you'll need to eat food with a total value of 100 caps every day. However, there isn't an easy solution for this like there is for Purified Water. Early in the game you'll probably have a tough time acquiring enough meat to cook your own meals, but if you eat pre-war food, then you're going to take a lot of radiation damage and eventually need help from a doctor.
So grab the Hunter perk as quickly as possible. This will improve the meat you get from killing bugs and animals. You should also make your way to towns and shopkeepers quickly. In Diamond City, the meat merchant Polly might have enough stock to keep you full for a couple of days. At Abernathy Farm, Connie will sell you packs of Tatos and Melons for a relatively cheap price. You can also harvest the crops at the farm for some free Tatos and Melons.
Other good sources of meat include the Red Rocket Truck Stop (mole rats), the Starlight Drive-In (more mole rats), and the Robotics Disposal Ground (even more mole rats). Once you're powerful enough to take on super mutants, you'll also be able to loot their meat bags, which will supply you with lots of random meat.
New in version 1.3, you can spend Fertilizer at the Resource Management table to grow specific kinds of vegetables. So, for example, if you really want Razorgrain for Noodle Cups, and if you have Razorgrain plants in your settlements, then you can stock the management table with Fertilizer to increase your Razorgrain yield.
Radiation
Your radiation bar has 1000 points, and the more radiation damage you take, the less health you'll have available. Worse, RadAway will only heal 150 points of radiation and Rad-Off will only heal 100 points, and you won't find very many of either. This can put you in a hole early in the game, where you're at an uncomfortably low health level because you can't remove enough radiation.
The best solution for radiation is to just see a doctor (see below). Doctors are cheaper and easier than trying to use drugs for the same effect. Otherwise, you should try to avoid taking radiation damage at all. Keeping a hazmat suit around is a good idea, and early in the game you can use a vault suit (10 rad resistance) and a gas mask (also 10 rad resistance) for at least a little bit of protection. Also try to avoid ingesting irradiated food and water.
Doctors
With all of the illnesses, radiation damage, and health damage that you can incur, it's important to gain access to a doctor as quickly as possible. There are three ways to go about this:
You can travel to a major town -- like Diamond City or Covenant -- and visit the doctor there. However, these towns are far enough away from Sanctuary that you might have trouble getting to them before you really need a doctor's services.
You can meet a random doctor. You can sometimes meet one in the parking lot attached to Concord or in a house along the route to Graygarden.
You can build a first aid station in one of your settlements. This used to be difficult because you'd need perks to unlock the construction. But now you just need Vendor Contracts, which you can buy from wandering merchants like Carla (who visits Sanctuary) and Lucas (who visits Tenpines Bluff). Once you have doctors in your settlements, healing is a lot easier.
Weapons
You'll find lots of weapons when you kill enemies, but they'll almost always be in poor condition. Sometimes, you can repair these weapons at the Weapons Workbench, but a better solution is to reverse engineer them at the ZX-1 Experimentation Lab (which unlocks their recipe), and then build them anew.
When using the ZX-1 Experimentation Lab, you first need the perks and resources required to craft the basic model of the weapon, and then you need to pick one of three metal alloys to produce extra benefits. Your weapon crafting skill (gained from reverse engineering, crafting weapons at the lab, or using Weapon Tinker Kits from the Tech Lab) controls how powerful the weapon can be. The higher your crafting skill, the more alloys you can add, which increases the damage (by 2% for each alloy) and the experimentation points (by 10 for each alloy). Experimentation points allow you to improve things like the weapon's range, accuracy, and AP cost.
Horizon also allows you to switch the firing mode of your weapons, plus the ammunition being used, while you're in the field. This is accomplished through the use of a Weapon Toolkit, which you can add to your favorites so you can access it via the press of a button. To go along with the toolkit, you'll also need a conversion kit for the type of weapon you're using. Both the toolkit and conversion kits can be built at the Tech Lab.
Ballistic Weave
Horizon treats ballistic weave a little differently than the vanilla game. You'll have two ways to get it. The first is to increase the crafting skill of your settlers (via tasks and the Command Table). Once their crafting skill is over 25, you'll be able to use contracted work at the Tech Lab to craft Ballistic Weave Mk1 and Insulated Weave Mk 1. From there you should be able to insert the weaves into your underarmor / clothing and hat / helmet items.
The other method is the same as the vanilla method. After completing the first DIA Cache / Jackpot quest for PAM at Railroad HQ, Tinker Tom will start selling clothing items containing Ballistic Weave Mk 1. You'll then need to buy one of the clothing items, take it to an armor workbench, and select "No Weave" for it. This will put the weave into your inventory, which will allow you to place it in a different item.
When upgrading ballistic weave of either type, you'll need to remove it from the item it's in (by selecting "No Weave") and then select the next version you can craft (if any). This will place the improved weave back in the item. Nicely, this means you'll only need two sets of ballistic weave for your entire game (one for your hats and one for your clothing), and you'll be able to transfer them to new items if you find something better.
Metallic Alloys
When crafting and modding weapons and armor, you'll need lots of special metallic alloys. You'll find these alloys in a variety of places. Legendary enemies can drop them (in their prototype items); you can find them in appliances (like cigarette machines and milk vending machines), provided you have the Technologist perk; a lot of the medallions from the Fortune Finder perk will have them; name-brand junk items (like luxobrew coffee pots) can contain them; and regular junk items (including high-powered magnets and biometric scanners) can contain them.
Exploration
The world gets more dangerous the farther away you get from Sanctuary, but the rewards get better, too. At some point you'll also need to reach a major city just for the shopkeepers, quests, and doctors. The main questline will send you south from Sanctuary, where you'll encounter Concord, the Drumlin Diner, and Graygarden while making your way to Diamond City. This can be a dangerous path since downtown Boston is filled with super mutants, robots and raiders. An alternative is to head southeast from Sanctuary and make your way to Covenant. Covenant is smaller than Diamond City, but it's easier to get to, and it has a general shop and a doctor available.
While you're exploring, you'll have to be careful about the enemies you tackle. Super mutants and robots are much tougher in Horizon than they are in the vanilla game, and in the early goings you might have to run away rather than face them. You should also get used to using VATS, if for no other reason than to learn the vulnerabilities of your enemies. Once you've learned that super mutants are vulnerable in their head, protectrons in their legs, and Mr. Handy robots in their eyes, they're not quite as difficult to kill, and you won't have to spend as many bullets in the process.
Mods
You have to be careful with Horizon. It touches just about every aspect of the game, so if you try to mix in other mods, sometimes they'll work, and sometimes they'll cause problems -- but often enough the problems are subtle, and you might not even realize they're there. For example, if you seem like you're almost invulnerable, or if enemies take an excessive number of hits to kill, then you have a conflict. Horizon is designed so combat makes sense and there aren't any "bullet sponges," so if you're seeing the opposite, that's one of the easiest ways to tell that one of your other mods is causing a problem.
Note: If you want to see a video about how combat should look early in the game, click here.
Below we'll list some of the mods that do and don't work well with Horizon.
Mods That Work Well
- Armor and Weapons Keywords Community Resource (AWKCR) and Armorsmith Extended (AE). These mods have official Horizon patches that you can include when you install Horizon.
- Armor / clothing mods. These usually work fine except for balance. Underarmor items shouldn't have SPECIAL bonuses, and they shouldn't include much in the way of defense. If you can't find an unofficial patch for an armor mod, then you can always use less ballistic weave on it so it fits in better, or you can use FO4Edit yourself to reduce its stats.
- Beantown Interiors. Just be sure to use the included holotape to reduce the amount of loot it drops.
- Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Enhancer (CBBE) plus BodySlide and Outfit Studio.
- Darker Nights and True Nights.
- DEF_UI with both DEF_HUD and DEF_INV included. You need both of these mods so information is presented correctly. However, while Horizon includes a DEF_HUD xml file, you can use any HUD preset you want.
- Full Dialogue Interface.
- Homemaker. This mod has an official Horizon patch that you can include when you install Horizon.
- HUDFramework.
- Improved Map with Visible Roads.
- Looksmenu, including the Customization Compendium. Related mods that change skin textures (like Valkyr Female Face and Body Textures), add facial options (like The Eyes of Beauty), or add hair options (like Ponytail Hairstyles by Azar) are also fine.
- Official Horizon Weapon Merge Pack and Crossbows of the Commonwealth. These weapon mods are officially supported by Horizon.
- Outfit Switcher.
- Pip-Boy Flashlight.
- Place Everywhere.
- Scrap Everything. Horizon includes two official patches for this mod, one for only scrapping some extra things, and another where you can scrap everything.
- Sim Settlements. This mod has an official Horizon patch that you can include when you install Horizon. But you have to be careful here. The main mod has some balance issues, and a lot of the associated mods aren't balanced at all.
- True Storms.
- Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch. This mod doesn't interfere with Horizon, but it's not clear if it actually helps, either.
- Vivid Fallout.
Note: Horizon includes ways for you to fast travel and save your game, so mods for those things aren't absolutely necessary. However, it's a good idea to pick up a mod that unlocks the console during survival mode (like Survival Mode Console Enabler). If you really don't want to be restricted in your saves, then there are options for this as well (like Survival Quick Save).Mods That Don't Work Well
- Any mod that changes companions, even just their face, requires a patch.
- Overhaul mods are likely to cause problems. Plus, most areas of the game, including armor, factions, loot and more, have already been overhauled in Horizon.
- Quest mods are likely to be unbalanced.
- Weapon mods are likely to cause problems, and they're more difficult to adjust than armor mods, so you should always wait for a patch.
Horizon also includes clean reflex sights, faster terminals, and personalized beds, so mods adding those things aren't needed.A little explanation about the Scrap Storage system might help out newcomers as well.
And as far as Mods that work with horizon:
Easy Lockpicking and Easy Hacking both work fine (this question comes up sometimes)
Darker Nights (needs no patch)
Rain of Brass (needs no patch)
Auto eat and Drink in Survival (needs no patch, does require SKSE)
PipBoy Flashlight (needs no patch)
Easy to See Glowing Stuff (needs no patch)
Cartographers Map Markers (Needs no patch, but turn the XP gain down or off in the holotape)
Cthulhuandme's mods (which add FACIAL variety to raiders, gunners and Diamond city guards) all seem to work fine (confirmation needed)
Glowing Animals Emit Light (only one record needs forwarding, the Behemouth)
ChemRedux (only two records need forwarding, Nifs for psychojet and Buffjet)
Kudos!!
Also, there's a loot trunk next to the water tower near Red Rocket. It's near the bushes there, half dug into the ground. Heaps of useful items which can respawn quite a few times early on.
Great guide, I'm sure zawinul would appreciate this!
"You can also visit the root cellar behind the blue house on the northern side of the settlement (two houses away from yours). There you'll find an advanced safe, a high quality first aid kit, three Purified Waters, a Supply Kit (which gives 30 supplies at the Caravan Travel Hub), a Vault-Tec Training Manual (which gives you a perk point), a Weapon Toolkit (which allows you to switch ammo in your current weapon, provided you also have a conversion kit), and more."
A few mods I can suggest for quality of life in the game are:
Locksmith - you have no idea how useful it is in combat to be able to barricade yourself behind a door for a bit of breathing space when you’re in a difficult situation. Definitely a must have.
Natural and atmospheric commonwealth - just makes everything so much more atmospheric, especially as nights are the most realistic I’ve seen in the game. A lot of people seem to avoid it but it’s so polished now with the new release and it looks beautiful paired with vogue enb.
Pip boy flashlight/tactical flashlights is a must paired with nac also if you want to lurk around in the dark in a far more immersive way.
Ultra interior lighting - also must have going alongside nac, works really well with t for the interiors as nac gives all the lights new drop off and accurate colours, so with shadows it’s awesome.
Moveable workbench - great as it also gives your settlements more build size via a script, so it’s also safe for the game if you choose to get rid of it. It’s aactually quite useful to be able to move the workbench.
Thematic and practical - a nice settlement item pack for immersive scrappy looking tables, chairs, pretty much averything, HIGHLY recommended.
Diamond city expansion is also compatible, and the mod author is due to update the mod and he also uses horizon so the newest version will be fully compatible.
Sleep or Save is a great quality of life mod. (I just disable the save-o chem in foedit....or just don't use it.)
Reasonably Harder Lockpicking is good too. Horizon changes no lockpicking settings.
No Scope Fade in.
Third Person Aim Down Sights.
Automatically Lowered Weapons.
No More Cash Register Sounds.
Power Armor Animation Changes (Fast Enter)
Power Armor Fast Enter and Exit (Fast Exit)
QuickTrade.
Hush Dogmeat by fadingsignal
Also to adjust your vats if you find it too powerful and you don't like VAFS just change these in foedit in settings:
(These settings will let you take full damage in vats, and you can change the vats slow down time to what you want. (I use 50%) Vanilla is 4%.)
fVatsPlayerDamageMult 1
fVatsTimeMultTargetSelect .5
The mod Better Locational Damage has some settings for Vats...you can use his if you install his mod and then take the better vats esp out.
1. He runs in front of you, many enemies will detect and attack him first, so you do not run into ambushes as often or at least get some seconds to run to cover.
2. His ability to bite enemies and keep them from shooting you and lock them in place for a couple of seconds is priceless. I stopped counting how many raiders I shot in the head in this manner.
3. He can fetch items that are placed in radiated spaces, like the Army Helmet in the APC west of Sanctuary and the Damaged FC under the Red Rocket. And as swcarter wrote, dem rads are really expensive and hard to get rid off.
I have played with both mods enabled for roughly 60h now and never had any problem with it.
For others looking for compatible mods, here is my mod list, which seems to be working perfectly so far (through level 16):
Alternative Chameleon Visuals - Alternative Version - Disable Chameleon Flash ONLY
Armor and Weapons Keyword Community Resource (AWKCR)
Armorsmith Extended - Armorsmith All DLCs Patch v3.3
Armorsmith Extended - Armorsmith Extended v3.31
Beantown Interiors Project - Beantown Interiors Full Optimization Patch (Requires Far Harbor Nuka-World Vault-Tec Workshop)
Beantown Interiors Project - Beantown Interiors Horizon Patch by OGGrinskin9
Beantown Interiors Project - The Beantown interiors Project
Button Lowered Weapons - First and Third Person - Button Lowered Weapons
Crossbows of the Commonwealth - Crossbows of the Commonwealth 1.4Unassigned
Darker Nights
Darker Nights No Fog Glow Fix for Far Harbor DLC
DEF_UI
Fallout 4 Enhanced Color Correction - F4ECC - 1.2
Fallout Texture Overhaul PipBoy (Pip-Boy) UHD 4K
Fr4nsson's Light Tweaks - Fr4nsson's Light Tweaks V1.6
Full Dialogue Interface
High Res DLC Black Face Fix - High Res DLC Black Face FixUnassigned
Horizon
HUDFramework - 01. DEF_UI Compatibility Patch
HUDFramework - HUDFramework 1.0f
Improved Map with Visible Roads
Lever Action Reload Fix (Another) - Lever Action Reload Overhaul V 1.4
Official Horizon Weapon Merge Pack - Horizon Weapon Merge Pack v1.3.0
Place (Fallout4 1.9.4 - latest release)-9424-1-16-8-940?
RAW INPUT - The Ultimate Mouse Sensitivity FixUnassigned
Realistic Ragdoll Force - Realistic
Reverb and Ambiance Overhaul - Reverb and Ambiance Overhaul - ALL DLC
Scrap Everything
Shaikujin's Better warning for settlements being attacked
Sim Settlements
Sleep Or Save - Sleep Or Save
Small Map Markers
True Storms - Wasteland Edition (Thunder-Rain-Weather Redone) - Nuka World Add-On (with TS Far Harbor Compatibility)
True Storms: Wasteland Edition v1.4
Vivid Fallout - Landscapes
Vivid Fallout - Landscapes - Textures in HD - ORIGINAL SIZE - LOWER RESOLUTION - Vivid Fallout - Landscapes - Best Choice Update
( I messed up )
Something about mods though......I've used place everywhere with horizon forever......without any obvious issues.
Is it just an balance issue or does it have a particular effect on the Horizon/game itself?
And I use the unofficial patch because without it, my game has too many missions that are unplayable. Even with uninstalling & reinstalling the game.
I do, however, try to keep extra mods down to a severe minimum.
I am wondering though.....been having an issue where if I use VATS too often or in a bulky fight it freezes my game. It becomes more frequent as the game progresses. Drives me nuts. So if place everywhere & scrap everything are the possible cause.......then I'll dump them like hot rocks. I think horizon now has it's own version scrap everything & with architect I don't need place everywhere for sanctuary home repairs. I also found a tidy mod for the castle walls, which was the other reason I've kept place everywhere, that now makes it unnecessary.
Do want to thank you for the guide because I took a break from Horizon for several months....and you answered quite a lot of questions I had. No doubt it will be a big help to someone just getting started. I'd have loved it back then. Thanks.
In reference to that :
The Command Table allows you to send settlers on tasks., once you've assigned some to job workstations, and as long as you're under your current limit for the tasks. To see your limits, open the Command Table to the tasks menu, and look at the X (Y/Z) numbers for each job. These numbers are totals for all of your settlements. X is the number of settlers you have assigned to the job, Y is the number of settlers you have working on tasks for the job, and Z is the limit to the number of settlers you can have working on tasks for the job. You can improve your limits by increasing how many successful and specialty settlements you have
I need to build something specific ?
To briefly explain how settlement specializations work: basically, in order to qualify as a particular sort of settlement, that settlement needs to reach a certain (pretty high) number for a particular settlement stat. I'll just copy+paste the exact requirements from the patch notes:
Settlement Classifications are:
- Farming Communities: Requires 70+ food production
- Military Outposts: Requires 150+ Defense
- Trading Markets: Requires 25+ Trading Income
- Water Treatment Plants: Requires 100+ Purified Water Supply
- Industrial Park: Requires 200+ Power
- Recreational Parks: Requires 400+ Bonus Happiness
I don't understand how the system is ment to work. I have the Tool kit and the conversion kit, but it still dosn't work on any rifle :(
To play the hole game without automatic rifles is very annoying. Please somebody just tell me what I need to do to get it to work as intendet.
assassin specialization -->
so blitz perk it's useless after take assassination specs?
When I go into workshop mode to build, the build item button is greyed out though I have all the materials.
Is there a perk or something or new item I’m meant to build first before I can build anything else? Or is this some kind of load order issue?
Cheers
EDIT: Ehhh, don't use LOOT. I read that just now. So problem solved.
PS: Horizon is awesome.
So I have 25 tasks assigned, and cannot assign any more tasks because I reached the task assignment limit. Is there any way to increase this limit? This is for settler missions.