READ ALL THE DOCUMENTATION BEFORE REPORTING BUGS :) IF YOU'RE HAVING ISSUES NOT MENTIONED IN THE DOCUMENTATION, POST A COMMENT. :) Known Issues:
Spoiler:
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Main quest not progressing: To progress the main quest in Northern Springs, you need to travel with Quinton. Sometimes when you reach the location of Nicholas Barman, he wont progress the mainquest. To fix this issue, simply restart the game and the quest can progress
Side quests not running correctly or not starting: Some quests in NS don't seem to start even though they have the correct conditions set up. Seems to happen more frequently if you run more mods in a playthrough. I don't know the solution for this issue yet.
Radios going silent: The radios added by Northern Springs (Sanatogan Radio, Hellion Radio and NSW Radio) can sometimes go dark. Usually happens when you change your load order mid-playthrough, but can also happen in general.
These console commands will stop the radio quests, and start them back up. Only works if this bugfix mod is installed: stopquest 00sanatoganradio; startquest 00sanatoganradio stopquest 00hellionradio; startquest 00hellionradio stopquest 00nswradio; startquest 00nswradio
Performance: Northern Springs breaks previs in some cells. Northwest of Vault 111, at Natick Banks and west of Natick Banks. Performance could be worse than Vanilla. If you use SOTS Atom's Storm or Previsibines Repair Project, load the plugins of Northern Springs and my bugfix patch after to fix visual issues.
Your game is crashing when entering Northern Springs? Are you also using Enhanced Lights & FX? In Version 1.11 of my bugfix mod, the fix for ELFX is no longer included. Use this mod: mdkd's ELFX Crash fix
August 2023 The full bugfix mod has been released. I fixed as many bugs as possible and added some new content.
May 2024 Version 1.1 just launched. I've added new craftable paintings for workshop mode and added new bugfixes here and there.
May 2025 Version 1.11 was published. Some issues were fixed, some subjective changes were removed. More in the changelog.
Version 1.2 will add attack settlement attack markers to all settlements in Northern Springs. More visual bugs, lighting issues and typos will be fixed. Am also working on fixing some quest problems here and there.
Thank you !!! I got the dialogue bug and couldn't see why or when. I really didn't want to rollback 6 hours of gameplay, i give my thanks for this mod to patch the treacherous unfinished mod.
You're welcome! Some of the dialogue from the Sanatogan residents was starting the dialogue scene in the Sanatogan Inn for some reason. That locks you out of all dialogue, unless you talk to the robot in the Sanatogan Inn. That's all fixed.
In Version 1.2 the Sanatogan Inn service will be fully available again.
Hello! Kevin Larsen here.😊 It's not a bug, but i want you to know about. Power sub-station, second floor, where assaultron is. There is a safe on the wall, which requires nearby terminal to unlock, but the terminal indicates notthing.
sorry i must have only read the information that was in the pinned post.
anyway i have been playing the mod and i have already run into a lot of game freezes or glitched issues, most of them were easy to get passed, i'm pretty sure the freezes were due to vortex doing their annoying updates because typically that doesn't happen unless they update vortex.
anyway i have run into one glitch that's making it impossible to get passed, the entrance to the new landscape simply CTD's my game, i have tried twice in a row now, and i have no idea how to get it to load without CTDing.
is there maybe a console command into the world space? EDIT: i just checked to see if they were both loaded right, and yeah they are, also the bugfix is loaded after the main mod, so i have no clue how to get passed the CTD.
well it worked it got me through to the other side, but i'm still running into CTD issues, as i reach the other side my quest marker leads me to a CTD less than a block away from the marker, at first i though maybe i needed to adjust the load order so i did that, and the CTD issue still exists.
should i just take out ELFX at this point? i only use that mod so some interiors aren't too damn bright.
or maybe i should just do a fresh save game, i did install this mod mid playthrough of at least 2 days, if i have to start over, that's totally fine to me, i would rather everything runs well instead of CTDing everywhere i go.
i have a mod that ads enemy's, but not through spawning, well spawning in the traditional way, they are created in a hidden load door location and then they get pumped out into the commonwealth only, i also did start with a new save and i'm still running into that CTD issue, there is already a fight going on with supermutants and the brotherhood in the mod when going through the entrance.
anyway idk how many more times i can do this before i give up playing this mod, if i need to take out that mod then fine, but it will likely screw up my game because you aren't supposed to take mods out in a current playthrough, they aren't custom assets everything is vanilla game assets, but it could still screw things up.
now i don't CTD in the main boston map with this mod on, and Boston is typically pretty heavy with these NPC's running around. but if i have to take it out, i have to take it out.
Mods that spawn NPCs a lot can increase instability. Some of them don't properly clean up dead NPCs, and you'll end up with more crashes. Another user reported frequent CTDs in Northern Springs, but returned a bit later and had no such issues anymore.
I'm sorry if I can't be of more help here. I can't reproduce these CTDs. Northern Springs has many issues that have been fixed with my patch, but even without the patch I don't have CTDs in Northern Springs.
i just did a test, took that mod out completely and any other possible mod that might spawn stuff in, and it's still crashing. i feel like i have to run this completely vanilla lol, at this time i can't tell what mod could be the real issue.
i uploaded a video of my mods list in vortex, maybe you will see a mod that might cause the issue. https://cdn.mgtow.tv/upload/videos/2025/06/nEQ9M8PKns2Nqg3W82Dz_09_12daa14430a33855cbd7d8ac10e4e1d5_video_1080p_converted.mp4
Go to the ini file of Classic Holstered weapons and disable it for NPCs, enable it only for the player. I've used that mod some time ago and it was acting up if you used custom skeleton.nif files.
it's still screwing with me after that change. https://cdn.mgtow.tv/upload/videos/2025/06/Cr3MJoR7iHyee2Scj5u7_09_5ce1ef2a61c1e1cb7e20b120a31ceb61_video_1080p_converted.mp4
i did take out more mods and i suppose i can do it once again, i mean i don't really need "you and what army" and many others i have in there related to the minutemen, "you and what army" does have some scripted events based on your settlement builds where it makes NPC's travel on the roads patrolling, then i have another mod called Settlement Visitors AIO, and that mod creates random NPC's to settlements, but they aren't your normal NPC settlers, they allow you to use any faction, i have that on the lowest spawn setting, and those two mods might be the issue, i hear Crime And Punishment might have heavy scripts, but i have never had issues with it, so i'm not sure, Minutemen Squads has some scripted stuff but i haven't started that quest in this playthrough, unless it's running scripts behind the scenes that i don't know about.
outside of these mods, i'm not sure what could cause potential problems. almost forgot, NAC does change the weather, but that mod mostly doesn't have issues outside of it's menu.
so the most likely culprits i think are these.
"you and what army" "Settlement Visitors AIO" "Crime And Punishment" "Minutemen Squads" "NAC X Legacy edition"
if i take these out, i will have to start a fresh save game because these can leave in bad scripts and cause even more issues.
I was using You and what army and didn't have any problems in Northern Springs. I am also using Minutemen Squads just fine with Northern Springs. If you aren't already, please use Buffout 4 and the crashlog scanner. They can help you identify the issues, or at least identify what happened as the game crashed. They are very useful tools.
ok cool, that helps me know more, the issue i have with buffout is it's kind of a complicated install and i don't fully understand the install instructions, otherwise i would use it already, but what does it do outside of reporting bad mods? like does it improve the game performance wise?
i might have to read more on that later and come back to it.
Buffout 4 creates crashlogs when your game crashes. It also has some engine tweaks and engine level bugfixes that prevent some CTDs and weird bugs. I've not seen a decrease/increase in performance with Buffout 4.
To install Buffout 4, install the required files and install Buffout 4 into your data folder, like other F4SE mods.
it's not buffout specifically that's hard for me to figure out, it's one of the requirements that makes buffout work, it's that damn xSE PluginPreloader F4 mod, it's too confusing for my dyslexic learning disability ass to understand.
i have all the required plugins, except that mod specifically, i have a mental block preventing me from finishing the installation because i just know i will f*#@ it up somehow, misunderstand something and become discouraged and never want to touch it again.
now i will admit i used to think the installation of the script extender was hard, but that was simplified with Vortex which is why i use Vortex to begin with, yeah i know everyone says MO2 is better, but i used that manager for years before Vortex and that mod manager had me pulling out my hair to get it to work, it became too complicated to use is what i'm saying.
The plugin preloader is simple to install, but must be installed manually. Download the recent file manually (Not with mod manager), extract to desktop, then locate your Fallout 4 game folder. If using steam, just locate programsX86/steam/steamapp/common/Fallout 4. Place the two files from the XSE plugin preloader in the folder that also has the Fallout 4.exe, NOT INTO THE DATA FOLDER.
After that, install the private profile director and Buffout 4 via Vortex, and things should work out. I hope this helps! Northern Springs is pretty cool, worth the hassle here and there, I promise.
ok see, this is where it becomes confusing, the exe folder is the data folder, so if i don't install it in that folder, then what folder do i install it in?
Hello I been having some troubles with the mod (it explodes when its snowing) and also some quest wont advance..
Ive downloaded the latest version I found you mention one from february but in nexus I only find one from January 31 the one that u mention is nowhere to be found :(
This is the required file, it's the first file on the Northern Springs modpage. Also the most recent one. I don't know if the LOD Patch is required, I've not been using it and things are working fine on my end.
LMAO! Thanks for the clarification, I was very confused why people didn't know about which files to download lol. I'll change it in my mod description.
thanks! I been playing without problems now even with the snow on I really dont know exactly what triggered it but im glad to know I have the latest version
I think it might have been a load order issue (I had jonsmod very high on my load order) and I dropped it under south of the sea (no idea how they conflict when theyre literal opposites) and now I have no problems besides the unfinished content and a bug I encountered (A guy named kevin appeared on those nice cabins near a lake) and he asked me to clear the settlement but we were there already just ended up loading an older safefile.
Snow makes the game explode? You mean crash? You need to enable a setting in the game launcher called 'precipitation' so whenever it rains/snows ingame the game wont crash.
South of the Sea edits the area west of Natick Banks, so does Northern Springs. Which is why Jonsmod.esm and my mod plugin need to be loaded after SOTS Atom's storm and it's previs files.
Kevin Larson does not ask you to clear the settlement. Unless you mean the terminal in Waker's Creek starts a quest where you have to enable the water purifiers inside the cave, that's intended.
The fullmetal head quest was bugged for me. Not sure if it was because I use outcast and remnants, and have completed the institute questline where you become director; or because I have completed the NS main quest. Anyway, when I get to the "talk to Hammerstein" stage, Hammerstein's dialog would just keep looping; never getting to the "We can give you a choice" dialog topic, no matter which dialog option I clicked on. The only way I could advance the quest was to setstage 20, but the doors still remained locked. Another issue I noticed (after unlocking the doors through the console), was if I came into that room from the other entrance; the whole scene where Hammerstein tells Triggerhappy Shrapnel to lockdown the place, and TS walks to the terminal, repeats.
No mod conflict. The quest was not implemented properly! Not sure how to fix this quest atm. I am thinking I will just make the faction hostile towards the player and disable the quest scene entirely, or maybe add a completequest flag to some of the dialogue outcomes, also add the one script that makes them unlock the doors again lol.
It's currently not fixed. Once it's fixed in version 1.2, I will update the documentation here.
Great to see more work being done for this awesome mod.
BTW... I've always gotten CTDs outside Bailey's bar; when the two guys who killed the prostitute turn hostile, and one of them equips an electric guitar as a weapon. I've got around it by killing them before they get a chance to speak to me, but then everyone else nearby - except the bouncer, also turns hostile.
And speaking of Bailey's bar; is the interior accessible at all, or was it left unfinished?
I've a question in regards to the mod made by Jshrap i'm asking it here because you and one other seem to be the only ones to touch his work in the last couple of years. Who has "inherited/overtaken" the development of the northern springs mod, and if there is someone who has, are they going to continue developing it?
To answer your question, I think that's me. I've made it my duty to maintain Northern Springs. I don't know if I can continue development of his mod though, add new official quests that are entirely true to his vision, or expand the story how he would've done it.
I wont say never, but at the moment it's very unlikely for me to go beyond maintenance of his mod.
Northern Springs is a harsh worldspace; in my opinion only the hardiest settlers, supported and supplied by a faction, could hope to form a major settlement there. I gave this settlement all it needed for immersion: -Defensive Turrets mounted on pedestals for better files of fire -Toilets with sinks, soap,and towels right next to them -Beds for up to 25 settlers (IF you enable Vilance's Library Support Plug-in. this is one of my semi-hard requirements. It produces wonderful double beds and working bunk beds, If you dont download this you will have to build your own beds, The turrets pedestals are also from this plug-in) -The Farming area is hardened by being partially surrounded by concrete walls. This is not intended to wall off the settlement, (which might require an unimmersive amount of concrete for this worldspace) but simply protect your farmers from direct fire during a surprise attack. - A Restaurant, a clothing store and a clinic The clinic is in a small adorable hut, which is from buildable cabins esl . I built and decorated quite a few of these small huts and they fit well into this worlspace. They all have lit fireplaces too. Its only an esl file you should download and enable it if you havent already. If you dont use it, the little huts will not spawn and you will lose about 40% of your living space and will have some floating furniture to scrap. -I did not include electrical lights in this settlement to keep with the post apoc poverty theme. But I did include a generator and 2 large fuel tanks next to it (and another large fuel tank dispersed elsewhere in the settlement). This drives home the immersion point that yes there is power, but you only dare use it for high value actions such as using powertools on the benches, so your limited fuel for the fossil fuel generator will be conserved. -As always in my TSBs, a Power Armor set is included, for your own or your main settlers' use. -AWKCR is completely OPTIONAL, I believe you may have a workbench not spawn, if you dont have it. It is safe to ignore the "missing file" message during install. -Many goodie boxes are included, that are sure to spawn some loot for you and to give your settlment a good start. -During import be sure to enable farm animals toggle, so you get the 2 Cows/Brahmin.
This works with both Next Gen (game version .984) and Old-Gen (game version .163) Key prerequisites offer 2 files to download, one for each game version.
I gave this another shot after it didnt work for me a couple years ago (always CTD past a certain point back then) but now on a different rig with a different load order, it works great. What a great worldspace!!!
Some Questions if I may: SPOILERS!:
- Do I have to agree to do the run with Jared the BoS Leader for quest progression? He is a nice guy and all, but we are passing so many interetsting areas I would have liked to check out and explore, it seems like I am just hurrying behind him and in doing so ruining the exploration. Also he turns hostile quite easily. I stopped using my full auto for this reason and switched to sniper weapon. But still most recently on a car explosion which I may or may not have caused by shooting an an enemy. Is he there just help me get thrugh fights? Because then I have no need for him. I am level 45 in X-01 MkIV wielding a legendary Minigun (when I dont worry about companions).
- How critical is it to take Quinlan to progress in NS? I prefer the feeling of lonely exploration but also he disappeared. last time I saw him was after the mirelurk fight when rescuing Celine. I went to her farm but he wasnt there. Just her (and she sent me to NS), so I left without him. (Interesting touch BTW to give it a workshop , I will make use of that later)
- I am in Northern springs running and gunning but my quest meter still says "take the road to northern springs" as a quest waiting to complete)
-I completed the 1st bounty for Quinlans old collegue in DC security, but even though I am done with it, the guy will not react or give me my caps or say anything but generic DC secmen comments after my return. He cant be found in his office but in the first main corridor. And the quest is still active even though I killed the target boss and all his henchmen. Thats when I gave up on it and decided to go to Celine's farm.
Thank you for your hard work! Anyone with insights please feel free to comment on my questions.
Oh yeah I remember. You had tons of CTDs. I assumed it was unrelated to Northern Springs. Glad to see it's all running well now.
1. 'Never the hero' quest is entirely optional. You can follow him until you're at the bridge southeast of Sanatogan, and that's where the quest should complete. But you can also do his quest later on. Again, entirely optional. He also does turn hostile quickly, yeah. I think I marked him as protected, so only the player can kill him. He's not in the player faction automatically afaik, so be careful in firefights, as he will often (against his own advice lol) charge into combat head first
2. Quinton is pretty much essential to Northern Springs' mainquest, at least up until you've reached Vault 132 and had a talk with the leader of the Vault inside. Maybe it's even possible to take Quinton with you until you found Nicholas Barman. Be careful with Nicholas as well, as he's marked as essential by the quest and will turn hostile if you happen to shoot him. But yeah, up until you reached vault 132, Quinton is essential (He's mentioned in the quest conditions, and when I was messing around with the quest conditions in FO4Edit or creation kit, I ran into problems, so that's how it is)
3. The 'road to northern springs' quest is the mainquest of NS, but also acts as masterquest for a lot of the dialogue in the mainquest. I think I made it so that completing the weapon component quest would complete this quest automatically, but I don't fully remember.
Either way, glad to see things are working well for you this time.
Thank you for the quick response and your insights!
I went back to an earlier save, before I left with Jared and now am kinda free-flowing it. Quinlan never did show up again. Maybe I'll go back to look for him at Celine's place again sometime.
But right now, I am enjoying the heck out of this worldspace and am building my first settlement ( with kevin)
I like listening to Jared and doing his run, kinda like a wild tour where the wolves, raiders and deathclaws will show up on the way. But I also love roaming around NS and discovering things on my own.
If you tell Quinton to wait, or dismiss him without selecting a settlement, he will often just stand there. I remember losing him for a while, I've looked for him in all my settlements, he was gone. I found him where I told him to wait, which was near Helen's Farm lol. There's a weird issue in that place where if you tell companions goodbye, they will stand around over there. The whole place has navmesh though, so Idk what the issue is over there.
As a sidenote, I find it hilarious which names people come up with for Quinton and Cerina xD Have fun exploring!
HaHa guilty as charged on the names. In any event in my defense it was 4:30 am in my time zone when I typed this.I had just come back from a week long busienss trip to another continent, so I took the liberty of playing fallout as much as I liked. Plus since I travelled 19 hours in a row on the weekend my boss will not expect me in the office on Monday. Its 11:29 am, I woke up 5 minutes ago and will continue playing in the next 10 minutes
PS: Any hints on what I need to do to be allowed in Bailey's Bar? :) PS2 : Extended Dialogue interface definetly keeps me form having key conversations. I disabled it. Of coruse some of my other mods depend on it so here's hoping it iwll be ok while I do this area
Ahh, ok, I was imagining all sorts of beautiful NPC girls waiting for me in that Bar Maybe a future update
Also I am working on a nice cozy transfer settlement blueprint for thhis worldspace, Weskin Farm. Do you mind if I post up about it here once it's done?
Some people are curious if I'd actually make what Jshraps considered Phase 3. I would love to, but I dont have the skills and knowledge to implement some of these things correctly. Many ideas also died with Shraps I'm afraid. He did post a lot about his ideas for the mod when he was still alive, but Idk if that would be enough because his planned Phase 3 was supposed to be a very large update to Northern Springs. I'm afraid that even if I had the skills I wouldn't be able to do his vision justice, and since he's no longer alive he can't really confirm that expansion would be true to his vision. But the ideas are there.
Yeah you can post about your settlement blueprint here and link to your modpage. I love seeing new posts, settlements, images and the like for Northern Springs!
When in doubt just keep it simple. There dont have to be complex quests in the Bar. Those are prone to bugs anyway. Just a nice wastleand bar. Maybe the NPCs in it unique coded so they would be amenable to showlooksmenu presets.
Surely a wasteland bar would not clash with his vision, even if it does not have all the content he wanted?
All we need is: A few heavily armed tough wastelanders (because those are the only people able to freely travel in this map) A few pretty waitresses in skimpy dresses.
A faction flag for every major faction on the wall, so all feel welcome. A sign "keep your beef on the streets" and pronouncing the Bar "Neutral Ground". Would be cool to see a BoS Knight and an Enclave Armored Trooper (both not wearing their PA's which are "parked" outside), sitting at the bar, arguing who has the better armor.. A Minuteman playiing a raider in a game of dice. Maybe even a girl or two on a pole.
Have u ever seen the Raider Bar in Natick from Depravity? Kinda like that, real gritty, but cool, except here raiders only a tiny fraction of the clientiele.
This is a tough worldspace more dangerous than even the CW South, so only the toughest of NPCs would be able to travel freely. And the not so tough, such as doctors or pretty girls looking for waitress jobs and the like, needing a competent and heavily armed escort. A small quest could be smiliar to Kevin's quest. a girl or two ar ein the bar, they paid all her last money for an escort to get there having heard there may be jobs available and then there weren't. You find her crying in a corner and offer her a settlement job.
Anyway, just my ideas...
Its all up to you.
For my 2 cents the best way to honor him would be to build on this exciting worldspace and give it even more exciting details, so as many people as possible are enticed to travel it and experience it
PS: I added a screenshot of my Guard at Weskin Farm entrance to the images section.
Those are some good ideas, even if they dont exactly fit into NS, more into the thuggyverse interiors. But I dont think the Enclave and Brotherhood would like each other very much after the events of Fallout 3, they've been hostile towards each other. ^^
Shraps gave permission for everyone to expand upon Northern Springs, and add their own interiors to the mod, or characters and so on. So if anyone wants to expand upon Northern Springs like that, they're free to do so.
My goal with the WIP Version 1.2 is to scale back on subjective changes here and there, adding settlement attack markers and mostly stick to bugfixes. There are some changes I've made, like cooldown between dialogue, or adding the Prototype G2 weapon, but for the most part, I want to stick close to Shraps' vision and his atmosphere in Northern Springs.
Also, I didn't see the last point you made in the original post. Completing the quests for Pete is mostly done through his terminal in his office. Just go to the bounty, scroll all the way down until you see an option named something like 'complete bounty.'
So I went back. As I remebered I never get the "Complete bounty" tab. (I disabled XDI if it matters) Only an option to accept the quest to kill a man I already killed.
I scolled down as far as I could. Maybe its me screen settings. I am on 21:9 via truby9 mod and it is posisble I am missing something.
Also my transfersettlement blueprint for Waskan Farms is essentially done. I just have to get myself together and upload and package it for Nexus.
My settlement styles try hard to balance giving my NPCs all they need to thrive, w/o breaking the post-apoc vibe. So no gleaming luxury mansions. But fields, brahmin, houses with (mostly) closed windows, working fireplaces for the cold, defenses, basic furniture, basic non electrical lights and toilets
I could but I am cookied with a Anonymous account there thats different from this one and I dont want both to cross for various reasons. I'd have to register with another email . Which I suppose I could do
I don't know what that file is doing, I've never used it, never had to. I only use the latest Northern Springs files, winter update, beta 1b, and my own files
It's one of the main files on the original mod is why I ask. Noted though. If you don't use it, neither shall I. (It's a whole ass ESP in my load order that wont be missed)
Hello! I've found another weird thing. In the north-east side of the Northern Springs, north from the Cornelius military outpost, game world has no borders, you can walk up north, where road ends.
It's funny how Cerina's cabin is outside the world borders, so you need to disable them
But Northern Springs obviously also has borders, that are disabled with the ini edit. Really unsure why Jshraps placed Cerina's cabin outside the world borders like that
I'd just walk back and ignore the places surrounding the borders.
I'll be honest with you, i'd never disabled borders neither with the .ini edit, nor with any other way. l just walk to Serina cabin, and all usually goes fine. In case of Cornelius outpost, things are just how i described, no game borders. And it happens only in that direction, for example, in north-west part of the map, where Super Duper Mart is, game world has borders.
338 comments
IF YOU'RE HAVING ISSUES NOT MENTIONED IN THE DOCUMENTATION, POST A COMMENT. :)
Known Issues:
To progress the main quest in Northern Springs, you need to travel with Quinton. Sometimes when you reach the location of Nicholas Barman, he wont progress the mainquest. To fix this issue, simply restart the game and the quest can progress
Side quests not running correctly or not starting:
Some quests in NS don't seem to start even though they have the correct conditions set up. Seems to happen more frequently if you run more mods in a playthrough. I don't know the solution for this issue yet.
Radios going silent:
The radios added by Northern Springs (Sanatogan Radio, Hellion Radio and NSW Radio) can sometimes go dark. Usually happens when you change your load order mid-playthrough, but can also happen in general.
These console commands will stop the radio quests, and start them back up. Only works if this bugfix mod is installed:
stopquest 00sanatoganradio; startquest 00sanatoganradio
stopquest 00hellionradio; startquest 00hellionradio
stopquest 00nswradio; startquest 00nswradio
Performance:
Northern Springs breaks previs in some cells. Northwest of Vault 111, at Natick Banks and west of Natick Banks. Performance could be worse than Vanilla. If you use SOTS Atom's Storm or Previsibines Repair Project, load the plugins of Northern Springs and my bugfix patch after to fix visual issues.
Your game is crashing when entering Northern Springs? Are you also using Enhanced Lights & FX? In Version 1.11 of my bugfix mod, the fix for ELFX is no longer included.
Use this mod: mdkd's ELFX Crash fix
August 2023
The full bugfix mod has been released. I fixed as many bugs as possible and added some new content.
May 2024
Version 1.1 just launched. I've added new craftable paintings for workshop mode and added new bugfixes here and there.
May 2025
Version 1.11 was published. Some issues were fixed, some subjective changes were removed. More in the changelog.
Version 1.2 will add attack settlement attack markers to all settlements in Northern Springs. More visual bugs, lighting issues and typos will be fixed. Am also working on fixing some quest problems here and there.
Some of the dialogue from the Sanatogan residents was starting the dialogue scene in the Sanatogan Inn for some reason. That locks you out of all dialogue, unless you talk to the robot in the Sanatogan Inn. That's all fixed.
In Version 1.2 the Sanatogan Inn service will be fully available again.
Thanks for the report! Bug is logged. Will just make the safe unlockable via lockpick in Version 1.2
the closest i see is this date.
31 Jan 2019, 4:31PM
Date uploaded - 01 Feb 2019, 12:31AM.
maybe post this in one of the pinned posts for future people like me.
anyway i have been playing the mod and i have already run into a lot of game freezes or glitched issues, most of them were easy to get passed, i'm pretty sure the freezes were due to vortex doing their annoying updates because typically that doesn't happen unless they update vortex.
anyway i have run into one glitch that's making it impossible to get passed, the entrance to the new landscape simply CTD's my game, i have tried twice in a row now, and i have no idea how to get it to load without CTDing.
is there maybe a console command into the world space?
EDIT: i just checked to see if they were both loaded right, and yeah they are, also the bugfix is loaded after the main mod, so i have no clue how to get passed the CTD.
ELFX CTD fix
should i just take out ELFX at this point? i only use that mod so some interiors aren't too damn bright.
or maybe i should just do a fresh save game, i did install this mod mid playthrough of at least 2 days, if i have to start over, that's totally fine to me, i would rather everything runs well instead of CTDing everywhere i go.
but if i'm going to start over, i will probably go even less mods if needed.
anyway idk how many more times i can do this before i give up playing this mod, if i need to take out that mod then fine, but it will likely screw up my game because you aren't supposed to take mods out in a current playthrough, they aren't custom assets everything is vanilla game assets, but it could still screw things up.
now i don't CTD in the main boston map with this mod on, and Boston is typically pretty heavy with these NPC's running around.
but if i have to take it out, i have to take it out.
I'm sorry if I can't be of more help here. I can't reproduce these CTDs. Northern Springs has many issues that have been fixed with my patch, but even without the patch I don't have CTDs in Northern Springs.
i feel like i have to run this completely vanilla lol, at this time i can't tell what mod could be the real issue.
i uploaded a video of my mods list in vortex, maybe you will see a mod that might cause the issue.
https://cdn.mgtow.tv/upload/videos/2025/06/nEQ9M8PKns2Nqg3W82Dz_09_12daa14430a33855cbd7d8ac10e4e1d5_video_1080p_converted.mp4
https://cdn.mgtow.tv/upload/videos/2025/06/Cr3MJoR7iHyee2Scj5u7_09_5ce1ef2a61c1e1cb7e20b120a31ceb61_video_1080p_converted.mp4
i did take out more mods and i suppose i can do it once again, i mean i don't really need "you and what army" and many others i have in there related to the minutemen, "you and what army" does have some scripted events based on your settlement builds where it makes NPC's travel on the roads patrolling, then i have another mod called Settlement Visitors AIO, and that mod creates random NPC's to settlements, but they aren't your normal NPC settlers, they allow you to use any faction, i have that on the lowest spawn setting, and those two mods might be the issue, i hear Crime And Punishment might have heavy scripts, but i have never had issues with it, so i'm not sure, Minutemen Squads has some scripted stuff but i haven't started that quest in this playthrough, unless it's running scripts behind the scenes that i don't know about.
outside of these mods, i'm not sure what could cause potential problems.
almost forgot, NAC does change the weather, but that mod mostly doesn't have issues outside of it's menu.
so the most likely culprits i think are these.
"you and what army"
"Settlement Visitors AIO"
"Crime And Punishment"
"Minutemen Squads"
"NAC X Legacy edition"
if i take these out, i will have to start a fresh save game because these can leave in bad scripts and cause even more issues.
i might have to read more on that later and come back to it.
To install Buffout 4, install the required files and install Buffout 4 into your data folder, like other F4SE mods.
i have all the required plugins, except that mod specifically, i have a mental block preventing me from finishing the installation because i just know i will f*#@ it up somehow, misunderstand something and become discouraged and never want to touch it again.
now i will admit i used to think the installation of the script extender was hard, but that was simplified with Vortex which is why i use Vortex to begin with, yeah i know everyone says MO2 is better, but i used that manager for years before Vortex and that mod manager had me pulling out my hair to get it to work, it became too complicated to use is what i'm saying.
The plugin preloader is simple to install, but must be installed manually. Download the recent file manually (Not with mod manager), extract to desktop, then locate your Fallout 4 game folder. If using steam, just locate programsX86/steam/steamapp/common/Fallout 4. Place the two files from the XSE plugin preloader in the folder that also has the Fallout 4.exe, NOT INTO THE DATA FOLDER.
After that, install the private profile director and Buffout 4 via Vortex, and things should work out. I hope this helps! Northern Springs is pretty cool, worth the hassle here and there, I promise.
you have steamapps/Common/fallout4 and steamapps/common/fallout4/data
You want to install the plugin preloader in the folder where Fallout4.exe is, so outside the data folder, just inside the fallout 4 folder
also i'm not too keen on using the manual method as i mostly use my mod manager which does all the more technical stuff for me so i don't have to.
anyway i think i understand now, thanks for your comments.
and also some quest wont advance..
Ive downloaded the latest version I found you mention one from february but in nexus I only find one from January 31
the one that u mention is nowhere to be found :(
Thanks for the clarification, I was very confused why people didn't know about which files to download lol. I'll change it in my mod description.
I think it might have been a load order issue (I had jonsmod very high on my load order) and I dropped it under south of the sea (no idea how they conflict when theyre literal opposites) and now I have no problems besides the unfinished content and a bug I encountered (A guy named kevin appeared on those nice cabins near a lake) and he asked me to clear the settlement but we were there already just ended up loading an older safefile.
South of the Sea edits the area west of Natick Banks, so does Northern Springs. Which is why Jonsmod.esm and my mod plugin need to be loaded after SOTS Atom's storm and it's previs files.
Kevin Larson does not ask you to clear the settlement. Unless you mean the terminal in Waker's Creek starts a quest where you have to enable the water purifiers inside the cave, that's intended.
Anyway, when I get to the "talk to Hammerstein" stage, Hammerstein's dialog would just keep looping; never getting to the "We can give you a choice" dialog topic, no matter which dialog option I clicked on.
The only way I could advance the quest was to setstage 20, but the doors still remained locked.
Another issue I noticed (after unlocking the doors through the console), was if I came into that room from the other entrance; the whole scene where Hammerstein tells Triggerhappy Shrapnel to lockdown the place, and TS walks to the terminal, repeats.
It's currently not fixed. Once it's fixed in version 1.2, I will update the documentation here.
BTW... I've always gotten CTDs outside Bailey's bar; when the two guys who killed the prostitute turn hostile, and one of them equips an electric guitar as a weapon. I've got around it by killing them before they get a chance to speak to me, but then everyone else nearby - except the bouncer, also turns hostile.
And speaking of Bailey's bar; is the interior accessible at all, or was it left unfinished?
Yes, the place is unfinished. There's no interior afaik, just the outside.
I've a question in regards to the mod made by Jshrap i'm asking it here because you and one other seem to be the only ones to touch his work in the last couple of years. Who has "inherited/overtaken" the development of the northern springs mod, and if there is someone who has, are they going to continue developing it?
-scn
I wont say never, but at the moment it's very unlikely for me to go beyond maintenance of his mod.
Northern Springs is a harsh worldspace; in my opinion only the hardiest settlers, supported and supplied by a faction, could hope to form a major settlement there.
I gave this settlement all it needed for immersion:
-Defensive Turrets mounted on pedestals for better files of fire
-Toilets with sinks, soap,and towels right next to them
-Beds for up to 25 settlers (IF you enable Vilance's Library Support Plug-in. this is one of my semi-hard requirements.
It produces wonderful double beds and working bunk beds, If you dont download this you will have to build your own beds,
The turrets pedestals are also from this plug-in)
-The Farming area is hardened by being partially surrounded by concrete walls.
This is not intended to wall off the settlement, (which might require an unimmersive amount of concrete for this worldspace) but simply protect your farmers from direct fire during a surprise attack.
- A Restaurant, a clothing store and a clinic
The clinic is in a small adorable hut, which is from buildable cabins esl .
I built and decorated quite a few of these small huts and they fit well into this worlspace.
They all have lit fireplaces too.
Its only an esl file you should download and enable it if you havent already.
If you dont use it, the little huts will not spawn and you will lose about 40% of your living space and will have some floating furniture to scrap.
-I did not include electrical lights in this settlement to keep with the post apoc poverty theme.
But I did include a generator and 2 large fuel tanks next to it (and another large fuel tank dispersed elsewhere in the settlement).
This drives home the immersion point that yes there is power, but you only dare use it for high value actions such as using powertools on the benches, so your limited fuel for the fossil fuel generator will be conserved.
-As always in my TSBs, a Power Armor set is included, for your own or your main settlers' use.
-AWKCR is completely OPTIONAL, I believe you may have a workbench not spawn, if you dont have it.
It is safe to ignore the "missing file" message during install.
-Many goodie boxes are included, that are sure to spawn some loot for you and to give your settlment a good start.
-During import be sure to enable farm animals toggle, so you get the 2 Cows/Brahmin.
This works with both Next Gen (game version .984) and Old-Gen (game version .163)
Key prerequisites offer 2 files to download, one for each game version.
Enjoy!
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/93936
PS: Please let me know if it works well for you, or not.
What a great worldspace!!!
Some Questions if I may:
SPOILERS!:
- Do I have to agree to do the run with Jared the BoS Leader for quest progression?
He is a nice guy and all, but we are passing so many interetsting areas I would have liked to check out and explore, it seems like I am just hurrying behind him and in doing so ruining the exploration.
Also he turns hostile quite easily.
I stopped using my full auto for this reason and switched to sniper weapon. But still most recently on a car explosion which I may or may not have caused by shooting an an enemy.
Is he there just help me get thrugh fights?
Because then I have no need for him.
I am level 45 in X-01 MkIV wielding a legendary Minigun (when I dont worry about companions).
- How critical is it to take Quinlan to progress in NS? I prefer the feeling of lonely exploration but also he disappeared. last time I saw him was after the mirelurk fight when rescuing Celine.
I went to her farm but he wasnt there. Just her (and she sent me to NS), so I left without him.
(Interesting touch BTW to give it a workshop , I will make use of that later)
- I am in Northern springs running and gunning but my quest meter still says "take the road to northern springs" as a quest waiting to complete)
-I completed the 1st bounty for Quinlans old collegue in DC security, but even though I am done with it, the guy will not react or give me my caps or say anything but generic DC secmen comments after my return.
He cant be found in his office but in the first main corridor. And the quest is still active even though I killed the target boss and all his henchmen.
Thats when I gave up on it and decided to go to Celine's farm.
Thank you for your hard work!
Anyone with insights please feel free to comment on my questions.
1. 'Never the hero' quest is entirely optional. You can follow him until you're at the bridge southeast of Sanatogan, and that's where the quest should complete. But you can also do his quest later on. Again, entirely optional. He also does turn hostile quickly, yeah. I think I marked him as protected, so only the player can kill him. He's not in the player faction automatically afaik, so be careful in firefights, as he will often (against his own advice lol) charge into combat head first
2. Quinton is pretty much essential to Northern Springs' mainquest, at least up until you've reached Vault 132 and had a talk with the leader of the Vault inside. Maybe it's even possible to take Quinton with you until you found Nicholas Barman. Be careful with Nicholas as well, as he's marked as essential by the quest and will turn hostile if you happen to shoot him. But yeah, up until you reached vault 132, Quinton is essential (He's mentioned in the quest conditions, and when I was messing around with the quest conditions in FO4Edit or creation kit, I ran into problems, so that's how it is)
3. The 'road to northern springs' quest is the mainquest of NS, but also acts as masterquest for a lot of the dialogue in the mainquest. I think I made it so that completing the weapon component quest would complete this quest automatically, but I don't fully remember.
Either way, glad to see things are working well for you this time.
I went back to an earlier save, before I left with Jared and now am kinda free-flowing it.
Quinlan never did show up again.
Maybe I'll go back to look for him at Celine's place again sometime.
But right now, I am enjoying the heck out of this worldspace and am building my first settlement ( with kevin)
If you tell Quinton to wait, or dismiss him without selecting a settlement, he will often just stand there. I remember losing him for a while, I've looked for him in all my settlements, he was gone. I found him where I told him to wait, which was near Helen's Farm lol. There's a weird issue in that place where if you tell companions goodbye, they will stand around over there. The whole place has navmesh though, so Idk what the issue is over there.
As a sidenote, I find it hilarious which names people come up with for Quinton and Cerina xD
Have fun exploring!
In any event in my defense it was 4:30 am in my time zone when I typed this.I had just come back from a week long busienss trip to another continent, so I took the liberty of playing fallout as much as I liked.
Plus since I travelled 19 hours in a row on the weekend my boss will not expect me in the office on Monday.
Its 11:29 am, I woke up 5 minutes ago and will continue playing in the next 10 minutes
Have fun playing
version 1.2 of this mod will add settlement attacks and many more things
PS2 : Extended Dialogue interface definetly keeps me form having key conversations.
I disabled it.
Of coruse some of my other mods depend on it so here's hoping it iwll be ok while I do this area
Yes, Extended Dialogue Interface does conflict with NS
Maybe a future update
Also I am working on a nice cozy transfer settlement blueprint for thhis worldspace, Weskin Farm.
Do you mind if I post up about it here once it's done?
Yeah you can post about your settlement blueprint here and link to your modpage. I love seeing new posts, settlements, images and the like for Northern Springs!
There dont have to be complex quests in the Bar.
Those are prone to bugs anyway.
Just a nice wastleand bar.
Maybe the NPCs in it unique coded so they would be amenable to showlooksmenu presets.
Surely a wasteland bar would not clash with his vision, even if it does not have all the content he wanted?
All we need is:
A few heavily armed tough wastelanders (because those are the only people able to freely travel in this map)
A few pretty waitresses in skimpy dresses.
A faction flag for every major faction on the wall, so all feel welcome.
A sign "keep your beef on the streets" and pronouncing the Bar "Neutral Ground".
Would be cool to see a BoS Knight and an Enclave Armored Trooper (both not wearing their PA's which are "parked" outside), sitting at the bar, arguing who has the better armor..
A Minuteman playiing a raider in a game of dice.
Maybe even a girl or two on a pole.
Have u ever seen the Raider Bar in Natick from Depravity?
Kinda like that, real gritty, but cool, except here raiders only a tiny fraction of the clientiele.
This is a tough worldspace more dangerous than even the CW South, so only the toughest of NPCs would be able to travel freely.
And the not so tough, such as doctors or pretty girls looking for waitress jobs and the like, needing a competent and heavily armed escort.
A small quest could be smiliar to Kevin's quest. a girl or two ar ein the bar, they paid all her last money for an escort to get there having heard there may be jobs available and then there weren't. You find her crying in a corner and offer her a settlement job.
Anyway, just my ideas...
Its all up to you.
For my 2 cents the best way to honor him would be to build on this exciting worldspace and give it even more exciting details, so as many people as possible are enticed to travel it and experience it
PS: I added a screenshot of my Guard at Weskin Farm entrance to the images section.
Shraps gave permission for everyone to expand upon Northern Springs, and add their own interiors to the mod, or characters and so on. So if anyone wants to expand upon Northern Springs like that, they're free to do so.
My goal with the WIP Version 1.2 is to scale back on subjective changes here and there, adding settlement attack markers and mostly stick to bugfixes. There are some changes I've made, like cooldown between dialogue, or adding the Prototype G2 weapon, but for the most part, I want to stick close to Shraps' vision and his atmosphere in Northern Springs.
Also, I didn't see the last point you made in the original post. Completing the quests for Pete is mostly done through his terminal in his office. Just go to the bounty, scroll all the way down until you see an option named something like 'complete bounty.'
Still enjoying the worldspace :D
PS: Thanks for the tip with the terminal.
Only an option to accept the quest to kill a man I already killed.
I am on 21:9 via truby9 mod and it is posisble I am missing something.
Also my transfersettlement blueprint for Waskan Farms is essentially done.
I just have to get myself together and upload and package it for Nexus.
My settlement styles try hard to balance giving my NPCs all they need to thrive, w/o breaking the post-apoc vibe.
So no gleaming luxury mansions.
But fields, brahmin, houses with (mostly) closed windows, working fireplaces for the cold, defenses, basic furniture, basic non electrical lights and toilets
Nice pictures btw. Looking forward to seeing the settlement blueprint.
Btw, do you want to join the Northern Springs discord server? So we can keep the posts here more compact
I could but I am cookied with a Anonymous account there thats different from this one and I dont want both to cross for various reasons. I'd have to register with another email .
Which I suppose I could do
Noted though. If you don't use it, neither shall I. (It's a whole ass ESP in my load order that wont be missed)
I think it was supposed to be used with mods that change landscape textures and trees or something?
But Northern Springs obviously also has borders, that are disabled with the ini edit. Really unsure why Jshraps placed Cerina's cabin outside the world borders like that
I'd just walk back and ignore the places surrounding the borders.