Help with modding please (I'm not a beginner)

[Presto]

Hey, I've modded several Bethesda games (from morrowind to Fallout 4) so I'm fairly adept in modding; however, I seem to be having an extremely difficult time modding Fallout 4 on the Vortex platform. I've been working on this for the past couple days, there are approximately 250+ mods I wish to install in total, but I've been trying to load the game with smaller mod lists and each time I think I got all of the dependencies met and conflicts resolved, I'll launch the game and have it running fine for about ten minutes, but then followed by a random ctd. There obviously must be something that I'm missing.

I'm about to provide a list of the 76 I currently have installed. Obviously I'm not expecting a full solution, but if someone could troubleshoot at least one part of the list so that I know what to look for myself, I would be appreciative!!

I've installed most patches that are included on the mod pages (I figure that I might as well just have the patch if it suggests a mod that sounds interesting, then go off the missing masterfiles to locate the mods that the patches are for, if that makes sense?)

I apologize in advance for asking for help going through my load order, I'm just not seeing the issue. Thanks for your help!

Fallout4.esm
DLCRobot.esm
DLCworkshop01.esm
DLCCoast.esm
DLCworkshop02.esm
DLCworkshop03.esm
DLCNukaWorld.esm
DLCUltraHighResolution.esm
Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch.esp
ArmorKeywords.esm
Loads.esm
NewCalibers.esp
simsettlements.esm
FCOM.esm
ConcealedArmor.esm
Gunners Overhaul 1.1.esm
workshopframework.esm
santuaryjunktown.esl
fungusfarm.esl
truestormsfo4.esm
More Power Armour Mods.esp
Consistent Power Armor Overhaul.esp
Mechanist Lair Overhaul.esp
Plenty 'o' Interiors.esp
Enclave Resurgent.esp
MoreUniques.esp
Armorsmith Extended.esp
Loads of Ammo - Leveled Lists.esp
PlayerComments.esp
Museum_of_Freedom 2.esp
BTInteriors_Project.esp
GunnersOverhaul.esp
The_Prydwen_Overhaul.esp
subwayrunnnerdynamiclighting.esp
MarketRedone.esp
virgil.esp
CampKendall.esp
CrimeTown.esp
modern firearms.esp
3dscopes.esp
M2216.esp
3dscopes-m2216.esp
More Armor Slots - All Dlc.esp
True Legendary Enemies.esp
BOS1 (normal).esp
GoodneighborExpanded.esp
CommonwealthChooksAndBunnies.esp
Raider Children.esp
TrainBar.esp
Eli_Armour_Compendium.esp
The Deadly Commonwealth Expansion.esp
ImmersiveDrumlinDiner.esp
QuazVehicleOverhaul.esp
CombatZoneOverhaul.esp
RRTV_FizztopGrilleEnhancements.esp
plenty 'o' exploration.esp
WZWildWasteland.esp
ALOOT_Better_CPS.esp
Goodfellow's Diamond City Defences.esp
W.A.T.Minutemen.esp
Backpacks of the Commonwealth.esp
DiamondNewVendors.esp
Enhanced Wasteland.esp
simsettlements_megapack_yeartwo.esp
The Sanctuary Bridge.esp
simsettlements_xpac_conqueror.esp
AtomCatsRule.esp
Minutemenoverhaul.esp
MilitarizedMinutemen.esp
UniqueUniques.esp
Mercenary.esp
Unique NPCs.esp
Brotherhood Power Armor Overhaul.esp
PAMAP.esp
More Power Armour Mods - Automatron.esp
CorvalhoWidowShotgun.esp
WattzLaserGun.esp
3dscopes-wattz.esp
5 Factions.esp
CROSS_BrotherhoodRecon.esp
BoSCommander2.esp
Safehouses.esp
CF_AtomicWarlord.esp
dD-Action Ragdoll Force.esp
DiamondCitySWAT.esp
Docile Radstags.esp
Extended weapon mods.esp
FEVTelekinesisSpells.esp
Friendly CoA.esp
Grunts.esp
ImmersiveVendors.esp
IncreasedSettlerPopulation50.esp
Journey.esp
Killable Children.esp
Live Dismemberment - BrutalNoHeadshots.esp
Live Dismemberment - LiebermodeNoHeadshots.esp
Live Dismemberment - RegularNoHeadshots.esp
LongerPowerLines3x.esp
MoreShipments_20.esp
NewCalibers_extendedWeaponMods.esp
No Aggro Impact Landing.esp
Quick Save.esp
RaiderFaceVariety_2.0.esp
RainofBrassPetals.esp
ShellRain.esp
ShipmentSize_100.esp
slevins_chemVFX-Light.esp
Special Ammo.esp
TDCE + AE + Raider Overhaul Patch.esp
TDCE + Unique NPCs Patch.esp
VisibleWeapons.esp
Weapons of Fate.esp
Animated Drinking.esp
Swinging Meat Bags.esp
Smoke-able Cigars.esp
CROSS_Cybernetics.esp
K9TacticalHarness.esp
WestTekTacticalOptics.esp
CROSS_Jetpack.esp
Eli_ArmourCollection.esp
WastelandFashionAccessories.esp
CBBE.esp
ChineseStealthSuit.esp
Combat_Helmet_Illumination 1.2.esp
Scouter_V1.1_by_Ruddy88.esp
Lots More Female Hairstyles.esp
Toxic Raider Armour.esp
Lots More Male Hairstyles.esp
Lots More Facial Hair.esp
KSHairdos.esp
ConcordMusuemRestoration.esp
fo4tribalpowerarmor.esp
AzarHolsteredWeapons.esp
ellen.esp
Heavy BoS.esp
B1.esp
DeathclawVariety.esp
FO4 NPCs Travel.esp
DX_Black_Widow.esp
BOUNTIESFORYOU.esp
DiamondCityAutoClose.esp
Companion Infinite Ammo.esp
VisibleCompanionAffinity.esp
RealComics.esp
EveryonesBestFriend.esp
AzarPonytailHairstyles.esp
LovingCait.esp
UnlimitedFollowers.esp
BetterCompanions.esp
autoweapons.esp
D.E.C.A.Y.esp
Glowing Animals Emit Light.esp
AnS Wearable Backpacks and Pouches.esp
AnS Wearable Backpacks and Pouches - Ballistic Weave.esp
AnS Wearable Backpacks and Pouches - Power Armor Carry Capacity.esp
ConcealedArmor.esp
LeverActionReloadOverhaul.esp
Lever Action Reload Fix.esp
NewCalibers_LeverActionReload.esp
GunnerOverhaul_UniqueNPCs.esp
Unique NPCs FarHarbor.esp
simsettlements_megapack_yearone.esp
mjc_sim_settlements_addon.esp
settlementcopbot.esp
settlementmedicbot.esp
settlementfixerbot.esp
simsettlements_addonpack_intimatespaces_sirlach.esp
simplesettlementsfirststeps.esp
ss_addon_pbpp.esp
simsettlements_cityplanpack_contestentries.esp
simsettlements_addon_vaultland.esp
fp_simsettlements-leaderpack.esp
skibsweapons-redux.esp
improved map with visible roads.esp
dd-enhanced blood basic.esp
ssaop_samutzvault88.esp
EnhancedLightsandFX.esp
StartMeUp.esp
Stm_DiamondCityExpansion.esp

[craigsters]

Some weapon mods add dependency's for ammo mods that me be outdated, so make sure any mods that add additional ammo that the dependency mods is up to date, make sure your other weapon mods aren't using the same ammo mod and you have multi files of the same mod installed

The unlimited followers mod might be unstable, seen others have issues with it here

Also any mods that haven't been updated in over 2 years can cause issues, avoid abandoned mods or mods re-uploaded by others

[Chef]

One thing, yoy need to only have 1 of the following active:
Live Dismemberment - BrutalNoHeadshots.esp
Live Dismemberment - LiebermodeNoHeadshots.esp
Live Dismemberment - RegularNoHeadshots.esp

This one, I don't remember, but it tingles my spidey senses that something is wrong, espcially sine you have WatM and Militarized MM:
Minutemenoverhaul.esp

And I see this, but I don't see Raider Overhaul anywhere in your list:
TDCE + AE + Raider Overhaul Patch.esp

Overall your list looks to be sorted correctly, but are you using LOOT? Aside from sorting it will also warn you about a bunch of mods that can have issues.

One thing that is different about FO4 compared to other BGS games is that they introduced Precombines and PreVis. Its a way of combining objects that you cannot interact with into one big mesh. It saves a ton of performance. The problem is that some mods break precombines, and it can be a huge performance hit. Without knowing what kind of hardware your running I can only take a shot in the dark and say its possible that if you have not top of the line hardware it could be over taxing your system.

EDIT: After a moment of thought, what mod manager are you using?

[kdodds]

Vortex in OP, @Chef. And that's the first thing I would suggest, switching to MO2 for more than a couple dozen mods.

[Presto]

Originally posted by Chef:

One thing, yoy need to only have 1 of the following active:
Live Dismemberment - BrutalNoHeadshots.esp
Live Dismemberment - LiebermodeNoHeadshots.esp
Live Dismemberment - RegularNoHeadshots.esp

This one, I don't remember, but it tingles my spidey senses that something is wrong, espcially sine you have WatM and Militarized MM:
Minutemenoverhaul.esp

And I see this, but I don't see Raider Overhaul anywhere in your list:
TDCE + AE + Raider Overhaul Patch.esp

Overall your list looks to be sorted correctly, but are you using LOOT? Aside from sorting it will also warn you about a bunch of mods that can have issues.

One thing that is different about FO4 compared to other BGS games is that they introduced Precombines and PreVis. Its a way of combining objects that you cannot interact with into one big mesh. It saves a ton of performance. The problem is that some mods break precombines, and it can be a huge performance hit. Without knowing what kind of hardware your running I can only take a shot in the dark and say its possible that if you have not top of the line hardware it could be over taxing your system.

EDIT: After a moment of thought, what mod manager are you using?

Indeed, I am using Vortex, which is supposed to have loot integrated into the platform. My hardware includes:

Radeon RX590 Fatboy GPU
Tomahawk B450 Motherboard
Ripjaws 8g x2 ram
Ryzen 5 2600 cpu

The game runs smooth as butter once it's loaded. It just randomly crashes without lag or any sort of performance hit. I will go ahead and make the changes to the plugins that you pointed out and download Raider Overhaul. If I still have issues from there, I will revert to NMM (as its proven to have worked for me in the past with heavily modded Fallout 4 on older hardware) and install loot seperately.

@Kdodds is MO2 a good platform? what are some of the advantages of MO2 vs NMM? I've just never heard of the platform. I'll be sure to look into it while transitioning platforms if I can't get vortex to work.

Thanks for your responses btw, I was feeling hopeless.

[Presto]

Well, I feel pretty dumb. On the vortex dashboard, they have a place for FO4SE, and FO4Edit, so I assumed they were automatically installed when in fact, they weren't. I went ahead and installed them both and now the game seems to be running fine! Thanks for your help!

[Snine]

To be honest, Vortex really isn't that great of a manager for mods. I've used it for about a day and got rid of it.

[Miku]

Vortex is...

If you have not much experience in modding, do not touch this heap of trash.

Yeah i use it and the amount of holes in my screen has increased exponentially since that day. At least it does not crash when you install a mod over 1gb in size like NMM did.

You know, good old NMM at least told you when it overwrote things and left stuff where it was and did not care at all about "circle relations".

Alright, rant off, not the point of this thread.

OP i suggest you check all your mods again, for missing dependencies and of course their dependencies. I know it is hella tedious, but it may be worth it.

[=EGC= kansasterry]

With vortex there are some mods that have optional plugins these should prompt you with a message saying it has multiple plugins however if you just enable them all there could be problems if you see this message it would be best to manually enable the optional ones for that mod in the plugins section.

I had to do so for some of the mods I installed using vortex because the message only prompted me to enable all or dismiss the message since the mod had a use this one or this one not both option for the plugins weirdness would happen trying to use both.

As previously mentioned from your list there was at least one that had a use one of these options that seemed to have all three enabled.

Vortex takes a little more hands on manual control when installing some mods as others stated one like MO2 is a bit more friendly when it comes to such installations.