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About this mod

Eighteen add-ons meant to better integrate the Frontier into Fallout New Vegas in narrative, structural, and mechanical ways. Some fix missteps, and others add content. (All-in-one download available.)

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Changelogs
DISCLAIMER: These add-ons of course will not receive support from the team behind Fallout - The Frontier. Do not bother Frontier authors about issues that might arise from these mods. Mod at your own risk.

Spoiler Warning: This page may spoil the events of Fallout - The Frontier for you if you have not extensively played it.

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Reasoning

The Frontier is a technical marvel, truly a feat of mod engineering, but its development issues have been well documented, especially here. Mod drama is not new, and this did not dissuade us from playing it. Like many large mods for FNV before it, we really wanted to play it and cram it into our modded game, but there were several things that we felt really needed to be fixed before we could do that. A lot of the problems come down to the writing quality, and, while we are incapable of entirely solving that, we put some effort into making those parts more digestible. And quite frankly, we had fun with it and made extra plugins for fun, to add even more content to the already impressively massive content of the Frontier. Note that a fair amount of criticism will be contained here, but we made the effort to make these because we care.

Versioning

To be clear, there are two versions of the Frontier. The first is the original (1.0) that was taken down. The new one, the one that is currently available, is a newer version (0.5.5 as of this writing, not counting hotfixes) that had some questionable (read: problematic) and some not so questionable (read: furry) content gutted. While these add-ons originally utilized the Fallout The Frontier Unofficial Patch, we now recommend using the newer version of the Frontier and utilizing Fallout the Frontier Unofficial Uncut Patch instead. Having the original version basically just functions as having assets that were never properly restored, and the aforementioned patch author recommends installing the old first and then the new, making the old one effectively an asset pack. Regardless, these add-ons here are assuming you're using the newer version of the Frontier as of v2.0 of this mod.

ADD-ONS:

All of the below add-ons are merged into the main combined file for convenience. Below is what they individually do:

Achievements On
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  • Re-enables Steam achievements for those without the Steam version of the mod (which does not currently exist).
  • Basically, while working on the other mods, we noticed the Steam achievements were largely already programmed into the Frontier. It seemed pretty cool. While many of them had corresponding challenges that we could see in our Nexus copies of the mod, many did not. So we recreated the Steam achievements as challenges instead so that Nexus users can accomplish such achievements.
  • We tried not to include achievements that already had corresponding challenges out of redundancy.
  • Some of the names weren't listed, and so we had to be creative with what the names ought to be.
  • Achievement challenges include: Speed, Overkill, Bullet, Hoarder, Vault 6, Goofy Safe, In My House, S*x Is Cool, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Jolene, Donovan, America, Hanged Man, Scrapz, Goofy Snakey, and Heavyweight.
  • Removes the creepy plushie.


Alternate Start
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  • Changes how the Frontier begins by delaying its start until it is meant to be played.
  • We were a little frustrated that the Frontier, with the exception of its level 11 requirement to start, insists on fore-fronting itself in your Fallout New Vegas experience. While many were making quick start patches, we were wondering, "Where is the long start patch?" Here it is.
  • The story of the Frontier clearly intends that the player has already completed the four DLCs, and the crucifixion scene implies that the player is already infamous among Caesar's Legion. So this mod delays the Frontier until those have been completed.
  • Private John, or the Suspicious Courier, will not make their delivery to the player to start the Frontier quests until the player has completed Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road. In addition, the player must have met Caesar (regardless of whether you spoke to him or killed him) and must still be at least level 11 (which should be no problem by that point). Only then will the Suspicious Courier deliver the message if your Legion reputation is high. Otherwise, Private John will do it.
  • You could potentially circumvent this by bypassing the courier stage of the quest, but you'd have to seek the NCR Exiles out.
  • However, it is understandable that players might want a quick start option, especially with all of the additional requirements that this mod adds. So, we also added our own quick start, one that is opt-in instead of opt-out, and thus less intrusive.
  • When the player exits Doc Mitchell's house, they can see a Suspiciously Odd Revolver on the ground. It is hard to miss. In a semi-immersive way, it gives the player the option to use the Frontier's quick start feature, and it eliminates the extra requirements that this mod adds.


Anti-Authoritarian
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  • Adds challenges for killing the leaders of the major factions of the Frontier.
  • Inspired by one of our other mods, we wanted to make a similar patch for the Frontier. However, we decided upon a smaller scope. It instead just checks for whether you kill General Blackthorne of the NCR Exiles, Domina Weaver of the Crusaders, Legate Valerius of the Northern Legion, and Doctor Voss of the Enclave. (We chose Voss over ARGUS because ARGUS was just scripted too much for us to bother with.)


Anti-Union Propaganda
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  • Removes the lore-unfriendly, anti-union propaganda from the Salt Mine quests that attempts to compare the American labor movement of the 20th Century to the communist takeover of Cuba under Fidel Castro.
  • Genuinely the quest was offensive, and its twist could be seen coming a mile away, particularly because it plagiarizes the Tenpenny Tower quest from Fallout 3. Much like that quest, the leader of the poor racial minority group, Ghouls in both cases, is revealed to be eviiiiiiiiil after the player assists in the fight for equality against the rich humans that oppress them, implying that a revolution to throw off oppressors is automatically equivalent to the prolonged suffering prior to such a revolution.
  • The fix is done by simply removing the final "twist" dialogue from... Dell Castron... And the fix was nearly that simple. No dialogue prior to the twist needed to be modified, as none of the union verbiage he used prior to that moment indicated that he intended to create a vanguard in the vein of the Soviet Union or Cuba. Such verbiage was common enough by American union activists in the 20th Century.
  • All that remained was changing the variable for the ending slideshow to not give a random bad ending. Initially, the Frontier insisted that the miners protested have their living conditions bettered for some reason. Instead, this mod makes it so that doing the revolution gives you the same ending as destroying the mine (a pretty decent ending). After all, overthrowing the mining company destroys the mine, not the physical structure but rather the hierarchy of the company that enslaved the miners.


Colonialism Fix
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  • The Frontier has a bounty quest in the long tradition of bounty quests since New Vegas Bounties. However, we've come a long way since then, and often these days bounty quests give the player alternatives to murder to complete the quests.
  • The Dead and Buried quest does that... for the most part. Strangely, the first target the player is told to kill has no peaceful option available, and considering that the end of the quest admonishes the player for not doing peaceful options when available, it struck us as very odd that the first target didn't count towards that admonishment and was apparently an "okay" target to kill. You might think, well was the first target a murderer? An abuser of children?
  • Jacques is one of the last surviving members of a tribe called the Snowmen (not to be confused with the Snowblind, a different tribe). His crime is raiding, i.e. stealing and disrupting trade, and he actually explains his reasoning. He feels other factions like the NCR have colonized his people's land, and the violence he engages in is his way of fighting back against his oppressors. Like most tribes in the Fallout world, his is an allegory regarding indigenous people. He does not wish you harm at all, but you cannot proceed with this quest at all without initiating violence against him, killing him and his friends, and completing a literal genocide.
  • This add-on adds an option to acquire his mask as proof of his death without killing by simply asking him for his mask to get the bounty office off his back. He's reasonable, and so we felt this to be a simple way out for players that don't think he deserves to die. It requires a speech check.
  • Part of this was annoying because the second target in the quest is an aspiring Enclave soldier who is given the most sentimental treatment imaginable for a faction of genocidal fascists. Despite the appalling double standard, he can be discouraged from pursuing the Enclave in a way that gives an interesting foreshadow to the space station quests. By using this add-on, opting out of killing Jacques will still let you deal with this guy and the rest of the quest.
  • But we did add a "fuck you" option to the Enclave guy for extra realism lol.


Crusader Cutoff Delay
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  • Extends how long you can aid the NCR Exiles before the Crusader questline is locked off from the player.
  • We like being able to play from the NCR perspective up to the space station to oppose the big bad space Enclave, and we're fine putting up with the NCR until that point. Unfortunately, the player is forcibly cut off from being able to work with the Crusaders after the completion of Chapter 2 of the NCR questline, which is right when the space station quest, Chapter 3, begins.
  • This add-on moves that until after Chapter 3, at the beginning of Chapter 4. In fact, now the player can do the entire space station quest and return just fine. Just do NOT speak to Wei upon returning, as doing so begins Chapter 4. A message will still pop up letting you know when the Crusader questline has been failed.
  • This does result in a small lore inconsistency where the Crusaders will try to blow up an Enclave space station even though it's already been taken over by the NCR if you do the quests this way. This inconsistency to us is minor though,... because we are fine with that. We are fine with the player betraying the NCR, helping the Crusaders, having them find out about the space station, not telling them that the NCR have it now, and then assisting the Crusaders in preventing anyone from having it.


Disarmist Diaries
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  • Adds a quest to learn about the long-dead culture of the disarmists.
  • Something we noticed with the Frontier was that, for a mod based around Portland, there were very few... Portlanders included in the mod. Perhaps they are there if you dig deep enough, but we noticed they were lacking. The Frontier definitely has a lot of minor factions, gangs, tribes, and towns that make up the Frontier folk, the Oregonians, but most of what could be considered Portlanders are Scavs, the raiders of the Frontier. The people of Portland truly have a unique culture among American cities, and we felt it to be a disservice to the people of Portland to not adequately reflect their place in this alternate American history.
  • We wrote the backstory for a group called the disarmists, people that protested the totalitarian pre-war American government for issues ranging from nuclear disarmament to racial injustice. These people are meant to represent a large proportion of the population of Portland from before the war. Their journey is detailed through the perspective of a single generational line of survivors, and you can watch their identity slowly fade with time, as people stop using the disarmist term in favor of other factions, gangs, tribes, towns, or identities.
  • The story ranges from the 2050s to the 2280s. In addition, Fallout New California's Frontier lore is reference in this mod to add more cohesion between the two mods. The added lore will reference how the Vault Vikings came from Portland and the events regarding the Enclave and Raider Alliance after the NCR-Enclave War.
  • There is some mature content in the logs, nothing that would be unexpected in a Fallout game. There is also exploration of the New Plague, which understandably might be triggering. If you've played our other mods, you'll know we tend to be well-read on Fallout lore, and so the logs will reference major events in Fallout history, like the Long Winter of 2077/8, the Great Winter of 2130, and the Canadian annexation of the 2060's, for example.
  • The quest is named in the New Vegas tradition after a song title, "Holiday" in this case. It starts at the NCR Exiles tent in the Mojave as an optional side gig the player can take in addition to the recruitment. Simply pick up the holotape in the tent. It will lead you to the next ones sequentially, and you'll delve backwards in time to see how all this started.
  • You can get the holotapes out of order, but there is an intended order the quest insists upon. The Frontier is so big that it was hard to figure where to place them, and so we decided to place them along the main quest path, specifically the route the player would be going anyway if they followed the path that a disarmist would follow. That means, if you play the NCR Exiles route and then betray them after conquering the space station and finish the game with the Crusaders, this quest can be done in tandem.
  • There are rewards to be found along the way, including souvenirs, collectibles, recipes, unique variants of weapons, a Perk, and caps.
  • Also removes the painting of Manifest Destiny from the Crusader base, as we felt it was not ideologically appropriate for a group that is very anti-genocide (despite their name).


Final Confrontation
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  • Adds dialogue lines and characterization to the final boss to give him a reason for his evil plan.
  • It's arguable whether ARGUS counts as the true final boss of the Frontier, especially given the different routes one can go down. Perhaps that title should belong to Rancor, as he tends to be the last boss. However, if we're measuring by attempted death toll, ARGUS is unparalleled in the entirety of Fallout, as he wants to kill, not just all of humanity, but nearly all life. The confrontation with ARGUS aboard the space station we feel is the climax of the Frontier, one of the most important and consequential moments of the entire mod. And it falls flat.
  • The player is told that ARGUS is the AI of the Enclave space station, and even though the writing makes it painfully aware that he is sentient, he has no coherent explanation of why he wants to do mass genocide. He has only a dozen dialogue lines, and all he offers as an explanation is that the Vault-Tec experiments prove humanity deserves to be wiped out. So his only motivation is that he seems to be an evil, misanthropic AI that might be bigoted towards carbon-based lifeforms? He's a supervillain.
  • But even then it doesn't make any sense! The twist shows that he was actually a brain in a jar, a human. He's a human who wanted to wipe out humanity for being inhumane! He's just... evil. We know why he's written this way. It's because the Frontier needed a villain that was SO EVIL that even diehard Enclave supporters would still want to oppose him in the linear NCR Exiles questline. (How did that work out? It's almost like the Enclave being evil is the selling point.)
  • So we gave ARGUS a purpose. The closest ideology that aligns with his goal is a particularly extreme version of ecofascism, and so we ran with that. We added a series of questions that the player can ask, where he explains his motivations. He's still obviously evil, but hopefully now the player can at least understand why HE thinks he's the good guy, why life itself needs authoritarian guidance and how decentralized movements are doomed to fail, kinda like how Caesar attempts to invoke Hegelian dialectics to justify his actions. Though, of course, the player is incapable of making ARGUS change his mind, it should hopefully make the final confrontation more thought-provoking.
  • Most of the questions you can ask to get more insight into ARGUS's plan require a skill check of some kind. Like, how do Super Mutants fit into his FEV-dependent plan? What about non-human lifeforms? What is his relation to the Enclave? Does this plan sound like a half-remembered version of Elijah's plan from Dead Money? That last one requires you to have beaten Dead Money to ask it.
  • Many of the player's dialogue lines have been rewritten to flow better with the conversation. The one about self-awareness was also changed, as self-awareness is a rarely discussed concept in Fallout. It just felt like a "is it okay to kill this AI" question.
  • All of the lines are voiced. Of course we couldn't provide new lines with the same voice actor, so we voiced the lines ourselves and inserted an explanation at the beginning of the questioning that says the audio glitched. ARGUS then uses a backup voice modulator until you face his brain.
  • We're not professional voice actors. We did the best we could.


Hot and Cold
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  • Adds a temperature system to the Mojave Wasteland and the Frontier.
  • All DLC is required. Yes, even the Courier's Stash.
  • The script regularly checks the player for where they are located and what they are wearing to determine what relative temperature the player feels (on a scale from 1 to 100). Hot or cold temperatures can result in negative consequences. Comfortable temperatures can bestow benefits.
  • There are three locations that have different climates: the Mojave, Jacobstown, and the Frontier. If you are anywhere else, you will not see any effects. We made this decision because the Mojave seems uniquely hot. It was, after all, already a desert even before the bombs fell. However, it's not so hot that characters are getting heat stroke all over the place, and so the Mojave effects are not too debilitating.
  • Jacobstown, on the other hand, is the only place in the Mojave with a separate climate, being much colder than the rest of it. Naturally, there, it is more important to brace for the cold instead of the heat.
  • The Frontier is the worst of all, where the best you can hope for is to simply not be cold. Being too cold will result in your death, as it is dangerous to forgo warmth in the snow. This should hopefully be enticing to players that like extra survival mechanisms. However, if you insist on wearing cold-resistant outfits or Power Armor at all times, you will be safe and won't get as much out of the Frontier mechanics.
  • The four temperature ranges in the Mojave are: Breezy > Comfortable > Okay > Hot
  • The four temperature ranges in Jacobstown are: Cold > Chilly > Okay > Comfortable
  • The four temperature ranges in the Frontier are: Freezing > Cold > Chilly > Okay
  • Temperatures in the Mojave get colder at night, shifting over and making it impossible to be hot at night.
  • The Breezy effect gives the player an extra point in Agility.
  • The Comfortable effect gives the player an extra point in Endurance.
  • The Hot effect reduces the player's Endurance by a point.
  • The Chilly effect reduces the player's Damage Threshold by two points.
  • The Cold effect reduces the player's Strength by two points.
  • The Freezing effect starts chipping the player's health away until they die.
  • All outfits are divided into five tiers of warmth: Basically Naked, Barely Clothed, Average, Well Clothed, and Tech Powered. Being naked is the fastest way to cool down. Barely clothed, second. Well Clothed warms you up, and Tech Powered is good for both the warm and the cold (like Power Armor, vault suits, and stealth suits). When you're in the Mojave, wearing different outfits will result in your temperature settling into a baseline in their appropriate range. However, when in a cold climate, wearing anything that isn't bulky or techy enough will result in your temperature decreasing. Feel free to wear a business suit in the Frontier. You won't freeze right away, but given enough time, it is inevitable.
  • There's no warmth or "how much skin does this cover" stat in the game, so we utilized scripts, string variables, and Form ID lists to try to catch any modded outfits we could. The system isn't perfect, but we are pretty proud of the sorting system.
  • If you're freezing in the Frontier and put on a bulky outfit, it will take time to warm up again. It is possible you'll die in the meantime. We recommend heading for your nearest interior and taking shelter in a building until the freezing effect wears off. It'll buy you some amount of time. (Also, jam Stimpaks.)
  • Do note that there is a gender bias with the temperature system because of how every outfit in New Vegas is gendered. For many outfits, this does not matter. However, there are some that do. For example, Great Khan armor counts as Barely Clothed for women (as their chests are exposed), whereas it counts as Average for men (as their chests are fully covered). So we did try to account for how the women in this game tend towards more provocative and less covering clothing, though of course your mileage will vary if you use mods that turn every outfit worn by women into lingerie.
  • Several other factors can affect the player's temperature as well, including time of day, being on fire or iced, wielding hot or cold items, consuming hot or cold things, and being near a campfire or in water.
  • Time of day: Temperatures become cooler at night. In Jacobstown and the Frontier, this means that the cooling affects are halved during the day. In the Mojave, this shifts beneficial effects. If you're Naked in the Mojave, you'll be breezy during the day but chilly at night. Wearing Average clothes at night in the Mojave is most beneficial, and you'll cease being hot at night as well if you're Well-Clothed.
  • On Fire or Iced: If you catch on fire for pretty much any reason, your temperature increases considerably. If you're iced by some type of icy or cryo effect, same in reverse, though this is rare. In the Frontier, this only happens from Chilling One enemies.
  • Hot or Cold Hands: If you are holding something hot, like a Shishkebab or a Super-Heated Cosmic Knife, you'll begin to warm up. The same happens in reverse to holding something cold, though this only applies to Snowballs.
  • Warm Belly or Refreshed: If you eat something hot or cold, that will also affect your temperature. Very few items have stated temperatures. We didn't assume steak was hot just because it is steak. This means the only hot item is Hot Coffee, and the only cold item is Ice-Cold Nuka-Cola. Purified water will also cool off just for the sake of being water, but not as much as Ice-Cold Nuka-Cola. In addition, new Buffout Heat pills have been added to a few places that give a warmth boost. Several are given to the player upon going to the Frontier.
  • Campfires: If you are near a campfire, the heat can warm you. This affects all campfires in the Mojave and Frontier, but unfortunately it cannot account for mods that add other campfires or other types of fiery statics in the game. But still, being near a campfire can warm you. The campfire script won't run if you're using an old version of this add-on. The solution is to save your game with this plugin turned off and only then reinstall it, reintroducing it your save.
  • In Water: Swimming in water functions as the opposite of being in a campfire and can make you cool off. This can be beneficial in the Mojave but absolutely detrimental in the Frontier. Be careful of swimming in the Frontier naked at night after drinking an Ice-Cold Nuka-Cola with a Snowball in your hand.
  • Thermostat Module: The player can access a thermostat to gauge their temperature status. There are two locations, one in the Prospector Saloon in Goodsprings to acquaint you with the Mojave, and the other is given to you upon beginning the trek to the Frontier, to ensure you have it in the Frontier. The temperature is even converted by a set of formulas into Fahrenheit to give you an estimate of your body temperature! The cool thing about this is that, if you use a UI mod that throws up some temperature read-out, it won't affect this thermostat, as it is reading the player's personal body temperature, not the air temperature.
  • Hardcore Mode: The entire temperature system is locked behind Hardcore mode. The temperature is still calculated, but if you aren't on Hardcore mode in the game settings, the effects simply won't apply to you. Important Note: There are scripted quest sequences where the player is made vulnerable to the cold, and this can result in freezing. We addressed the most important of these (the Legion crucifixion scene), but if you run into others, simply turn Hardcore off until it is safe to turn it back on.
  • Previous versions of this mod had alternate versions of this add-on for TTW and the Mojave stand-alone, but the v2.0 updates on this plugin were so extensive that stripping the Frontier elements of this mod became too tedious for us to bother doing anymore. Our apologies.


I Know What I'm Doing
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  • Removes the annoying incompatibility checker messages.
  • Named after the FNVEdit command "IKnowWhatImDoing", this mod simply removes the compatibility messages. If you use the modular Solid Project with the Frontier, no longer do you need the annoying message. We understand why the Frontier might not be compatible with some mods, but we think throwing the same message over and over again in the face of more experienced mod users that understand the risks they are taking is uncalled for.
  • This mod does NOT do anything to address incompatibilities between the Frontier and other mods. It just removes the messages for players that understand the risks involved.


Lore Consistency
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  • Makes edits and additions to the lore of the Frontier to make it more consistent with the existing lore of Fallout New Vegas.
  • First of all, we don't care much for the concept of lore-friendliness. It is a subjective term and should be treated as such.
  • When it comes to consistency, there's two major kinds we're concerned about. First are hard inconsistencies, which are basically contradictory information. Like, one source says A alone saved the day and another says B alone saved the day. That's a hard inconsistency. However, soft inconsistencies are pretty common among mods, where you have information that is heavily implied to be contradictory but not directly so. Like, one source says A saved the day and another says B saved the day. Soft inconsistencies can be resolved with a third source that acknowledges that both previous sources can simultaneously be true. Like, both A and B together saved the day, you see.
  • That's the mindset we had with this patch, solving mostly soft but a few hard inconsistencies. A recurring issue for us was how... absent the Frontier was from the Mojave. No one talks about it. No one mentions it. This is because the Frontier, unlike some other mods, isn't an exploration of a part of territory talked about in previous content. Rather, it is the addition of nearly completely unforeseen content, so naturally nothing in the Mojave would reference it unless someone went through that effort to make it.
  • And so we did. They only take the form of notes, but now observant players can learn about the goings on in the Frontier long before they arrive (particularly if they're also using the Alternate Start mod). These notes are placed throughout the Mojave to indicate how the main four factions consider their splinter forces in the Frontier.
  • A note from Ambassador Crocker to Colonel Moore in Hoover Dam explains his misgivings and her complicity in the NCR Exiles being ignored, despite their plans to stage a coup, in favor of military dominance over Hoover Dam.
  • A note from Lucius to Caesar in Caesar's Tent in the Fort explains the status of northern expansion operations, explaining that their two ongoing efforts, the White Legs of Zion and the Northern Legion of the Frontier, are making steady progress.
  • A note to self from Orion Moreno details his refusal to forget the "good old days" of the Enclave, and he mentions strange signals from space. We had him call the Enclave on the space station Central Command to draw a connection to the space Enclave called Central from Boom to the Moon. It's not like the Frontier ever calls them anything beyond "Portland Enclave" (that aren't in Portland, at least anymore).
  • Several holotapes in Hidden Valley represent the archives that the isolated Mojave Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel have written to detail the status of every Brotherhood chapter, including the Crusaders, to know who to trust.
  • Note that we pushed the Crusaders' arrival in the Frontier a few years earlier. We felt like it didn't make any sense that they had been there less than a year before the player arrives. The formation of the Crusaders is a bit murky, and we just propose that they weren't really organized until the fall of New Canaan.
  • Also note that the Frontier seems to mistake the position of Legate as being equivalent to General. The NCR has multiple generals, with General Oliver being the top one, and so it would make sense for there to be a General Blackthorne we hadn't heard about until now. The same cannot be said of Legate. The Legate is specifically the position of second-in-command to Caesar in the Legion. His entire point is to pose as a successor problem, where a dictator's rule is further cemented by having his death disincentivized by the threat of his ruthless successor. Lanius is the only Legate. So we fixed this by explaining that Valerius was the Legate after Graham but before Lanius, and he was thought dead. The fact that Valerius has not since retired the title foreshadows his rogue attitude towards Caesar.
  • The parts of this add-on that required the Frontier were spun off onto a different add-on. So now this add-on doesn't actually require the Frontier! This was done so that even people not playing the Frontier can read the notes that allude to its existence.


Lore Fixes
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  • This add-on was spun off from the above one, and it includes modifications to a few notes and other things in the Frontier.
  • Revises one of Voss's experimental logs where the Frontier attempted to completely retcon Mothership Zeta. Obviously someone was upset about the implication that the Zetans were complicit in the Great War, despite the fact that the Zetans were only implied to have sparked the brewing flame that was global nuclear armament. The log is now a simple examination of a captured Zetan.
  • Also modifies Rancor's final dialogue to replace the dogwhistley word "oligarchies" with "political parties", as that is a more accurate and less nebulous term. Changing the audio was more than we could manage of course.
  • Also removes a superfluous R slur from one of Voss's logs. We cannot say for certain if more slurs exist elsewhere.


Perfect Mantises
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  • The "mantis men" created by Voss on behalf of ARGUS were a small but interesting plot point in the Enclave's ultimate plan. The story doesn't call them out specifically, to the point where, in lots of playthroughs we've seen, players launch them without even knowing what they're doing. But observant players will know that they are meant to be the successors of humanity, the species artificially constructed to survive Agent Rust and not have the same vices that humans had a la the Enclave's flawed perspective on human nature. Every abomination and awful experiment Voss did was working towards the benefit of these creatures. This is why the player has the option to launch their pods down onto the planet. It's meant to be salvation. The player is never prompted to do this, but you can choose to understand that these creatures did not ask to exist. Even if humanity won't be killed, they needn't be genocided. It's kinda sweet.
  • Unfortunately this message is undermined by them being hostile to the player for no reason. Usually this isn't a problem. On the space station, you can only find them behind glass, so it's kinda your fault if you end up fighting them. However, you can find a few in Prodigal Station as well as a quite frankly wacky encounter in a random town in the Frontier where some had landed from a freak accident. These ones will attack you on sight.
  • Their hostility makes no sense, as these beings, by the lore, are clearly meant to be sapient like humans. Sure the Enclave may have given them an intellect completely alien to the way humans think, but do you really think ARGUS's ultimate replacement species would be one incapable of building his idea of civilization? Of course not. Even if conversing with them is impossible, they shouldn't just be hostile on sight. They're not Fallout 3 Super Mutants. They're not Feral Ghouls. They're not Swamplurks.
  • So this add-on fixes that. It makes them no longer hostile. In addition, it makes it so the ones found in the town are all dead. While they are meant to be super resistant to Agent Rust, perhaps the cold got them? Maybe they prefer warm climates. It might vary per game, but last we saw launching their pods lands them in Africa.
  • Also, we didn't care for the in-game name of "Evolved Mantis", as they didn't evolve and are artificial. Also, mantis is just one aspect of their being. "Mantis Man" was a bit on the nose for us, so we called them "Perfect Mantis", reminiscent of their nasty origins.


Power Armor Naming
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  • Renames Power Armor in Fallout New Vegas and the Frontier to a better naming convention.
  • This is something we normally do in our own installs, and we decided to make a patch that does it as well to incorporate the Frontier. It's just nice for Power Armor to clearly say what model numbers they are, especially for the Enclave Power Armor, which has a number of different ways of describing it. None of this Remnants Mk II X-01 Prototype MK3 Tesla Shoulderless Armor nonsense.
  • Naming convention: [Unique Identifier] [Model Number] [Variant Descriptor] [Power/Salvage] [Armor/Helmet]


Revert Loading Wheel
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  • Removes the Frontier's loading wheel and restores New Vegas's loading wheel.
  • The decision to alter the loading wheel in the way they did was baffling. It's literally the barrel of a gun firing at the player. It genuinely made us uncomfortable, and it was obviously made by someone who had never actually had a gun pointed at them. At least Benny just shoots you the one time.
  • This just reverts the Frontier one back to the New Vegas one, so all texture replacers for the New Vegas loading wheel will still work and are compatible!


Scav Disguise
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  • Adds a feature where any Scav outfit can function as a disguise to let the player avoid massacring them.
  • The Scavengers, or Scavs, are pulled straight from Fallout 3 in that they are basically just portrayed as mindless, evil raiders (and not, you know, desperate human beings). The player is constantly encouraged to mass murder them with very little justification beyond pointing at the bodies that pile at their feet. The player then mass murders them, adding bodies that pile at their feet.
  • So, inspired by this mod, we made a script that makes Scavs no longer hostile as long as the player is wearing Scav armor. It's not perfect, but it works. This should hopefully reduce the amount of combat the player is forced into, and it gives the player a way out of dealing with Scavs outside of quests. We tried to use the reputation system, but honestly that system is such a mess.
  • Some quests that require you to kill Scavs could potentially break if you're disguised at the wrong time, but we understand you're capable of responsibly judging when you ought to take the disguise off for the sake of a quest, or, worst case scenario, reload a save and try without the disguise on.


Scrapz-For-All
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  • Allows the player to get the previously Legion-exclusive robot companion in non-Legion playthroughs.
  • The robot companion a Legion player can get, known in the game files as Scrapz, is an interesting character that we didn't like was exclusive to a Legion playthrough. While we could try to make an argument that he feels very out of place being part of a Legion reformist subplot as part of a faction that despises him, no matter how much dialogue is employed to explain this contradiction, it's more honest to say that the motivation for this add-on was mostly just because we aren't going to do a Legion playthrough, and... we want him. So we made that happen, and we took his associated quest in Prodigal Station in Vault 6 with him. No longer will Crusader players be vault-less in the Frontier.
  • Due to the established quest with Prodigal Station and Voss, we had to think carefully of when to allow the player to complete this quest. And with that in mind, the player is notified when and only exactly when they ought to get Scrapz and do this quest, but the player does have the ability to opt out. In the NCR questline, this is right after completing the takeover of the space station. In the Crusader questline, this is right after destroying the space station. The player is given a lore explanation to check out Prodigal Station to see if the Enclave leader survived.
  • Upon taking the quest, the player and Scrapz are transported to their hub, either the NCR airport or the RobCo tower lobby, and the player is given the chance to repair Scrapz. Lore is given to explain that the robot has programmed delusions about being part of the Legion, and considering his dissonance towards wanting to be part of a faction that wants to kill him, we honestly feel this explanation is somewhat believable. The player can then take him to explore Prodigal Station and do his personal quest while learning about Voss's backstory there. Interestingly, Voss's backstory makes the idea that he lives on despite the space station very possible once you know the twist of this quest.
  • The quest, however, does end very differently. Instead of a confrontation with the real Voss, you find out that he did actually die. Scripts are used so that this does not conflict with the Legion playthrough, and the player is hopefully made to reflect on how they dealt with the other malevolent force within Prodigal Station. It's a bit anti-climatic, but it's more content for non-Legion players, and we are happy with that.
  • Some of the robots still mention Voss surviving, but our intention is for the player to presume they are mistaken and blame their mistake on the other malevolent force. We did have to alter some notes and messages here and there.
  • Scrapz's second quest to join the Legion however is still not doable if the player is not in the Legion. Scrapz will also no longer leave the player for supporting another faction, at least not during the game.
  • If you use this mod in conjunction with the Crusader Cutoff Delayed add-on, you can have the most amalgamated content in the Frontier by siding with the NCR Exiles up until the Enclave's defeat, helping Scrapz in Prodigal Station, and then finishing with the Crusader questline.


The Lord's Mail
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  • Modifies provocative outfits in the Frontier to enhance some mature themes.
  • With all of the Frontier drama, we were worried about what little mature content there was being gutted from the mod. Even though much of it still remains, we still felt it lacking and wanted to add a bit more to it, especially regarding the Crusaders of Steel. At least some of the Crusaders are feminists, and yet none of them are sex positive. So, we added a provocative Crusader outfit called the Lord's Mail.
  • The Lord's Mail gives the player a blessed stat bonus while also giving them a penalty when in the cold (especially when using the Hot and Cold mod). It's meant to be an extra, optional challenge to the "fetch a book for us" entrance quest to the Crusaders.
  • Adds a note where Charlene, Mollie, and America all give their perspective on the challenge.
  • Also renames the dancers' outfits to less demeaning names and reverts Esther's hair to her original hair style.


And that's it! Hope you enjoy! Consider checking out G59 on Parade, whose videos on the Frontier were really useful to seeing the content before we were able to jump in ourselves.

If you'd like to support us, perhaps consider watching Cinemodded Fallout or listening to our podcast, Game Theorem.