How essential is the Unofficial Patch?

[Mouse]

What does it actually fix? any examples?

[Mr.MilkMann]

It fixes bugs... Lots, and lots, of bugs. It adds a few minor things (Usually glitched loot-tables/some lore breaks) but still mostly bugs. You don't have to of course, but I'd highly recommend it.

[Thomastronaut]

The game is perfectly playable without.

[Yuffie]

All bethesda games are bugged piece of garbage and community fixes aim to... wait for it... fix the bugs.

[Futa Fanatic]

Originally posted by Thomastronaut:

The game is perfectly playable without.

Patch for me messed up my far harbour settlements -.- removed it and bang worked again

[Llyes]

Originally posted by Game->Killah!!:

Originally posted by Thomastronaut:

The game is perfectly playable without.

Patch for me messed up my far harbour settlements -.- removed it and bang worked again

Sounds to me like you modded a game in progress which will ALWAYS cause problems.

[Ilja]

Few notable examples include:

• Fixing massive spam from DLCs, when game attempted to load resources from them, before they were initialized.
  
  
• This thing, which managed to reduce the lag significantly for settlement builders, including modded processes:
  

  WorkshopParentScript: To improve performance, the ResetWorkshop() function and the "core functions" that handle actor and object assignment have been completely rewritten. Workshop resets are now 25% faster, on average, which is significant but admittedly only a minor improvement for overly large workshops. The resource assignment procedures however, which run in regular intervals while the player stays at a workshop and also are called every time a resource object is built are more than 90% faster now. This greatly helps in reducing the number of threads that are alive on WorkshopParentScript at the same time and makes script lag issues that could still occur after the reset had finished running less likely. This also required minor modifications to WorkshopScript and WorkshopObjectScript. (Bug #24312)

  
  
• And these welcomed fixes:
  
  • WorkshopParentScript, WorkshopScript: The current workshop tracking variable should now be updated properly when visited, and when the player leaves. (Bug #23016)
    
  • WorkshopObjectScript: Initial workshop setup is called twice but does not need to be since it will reset when the player visits for the first time anyway. (Bug #23017)
    
  • WorkshopAttackScript: Prevent a settlement from calling its workshop reset while it is under attack. This solves both thread locking and performance issues. (Bug #21895)
    
  
  
• Short wait period for resource calculation, to avoid resource detection bugs in settlements.
  
  
• Fixed settlement target locations, preventing bugs and issues in certain quests (like Mercer safe house getting messed up, due to wrong information between Outpost Zimonja and Abernathy Farm.)
  

They actually have release notes. I took the Workshop system as example, because it is the most buggiest and forum gets a lot of questions from that. However, fixes are plenty and go far beyond Workhsop system. You can search release notes for information that might be more relevant for yourself.

https://afkmods.iguanadons.net/Unofficial%20Fallout%204%20Patch%20Version%20History.html

I would strongly recommend the patch. If you want the best service, then toss in this one as well. It fixes a bunch of issues, which UFO4P do not want to address. This includes cutting the 1 single and super slow quest for running the settlements for dozens of smaller quests. This prevents several issues, where workshop scripts could get locked.

Workshop Framework by kinggath
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/35004

[Futa Fanatic]

Originally posted by Llyes:

Originally posted by Game->Killah!!:

Patch for me messed up my far harbour settlements -.- removed it and bang worked again

Sounds to me like you modded a game in progress which will ALWAYS cause problems.

errm.. who doesnt mod the "game in progress"? O_o no one or rarly there's someone that completes all quests THEN mods, plus i never had any settlement mods or any mod that alterted any aspect of this.

[E. Grey]

I installed it once, and never noticed any changes in several playthroughs. Removed it and been playing without it for about 2k hours. Perhaps, it depends on what one does in the game. Whenever I encounter an issue, there's a console command to fix it most of the times.

[Grubbs008]

Originally posted by Game->Killah!!:

Originally posted by Llyes:

Sounds to me like you modded a game in progress which will ALWAYS cause problems.

errm.. who doesnt mod the "game in progress"? O_o no one or rarly there's someone that completes all quests THEN mods, plus i never had any settlement mods or any mod that alterted any aspect of this.

Anytime you add a new mod, you start a new game. This has been the standard rule of gaming in Bethesda games since Morrowind. If you don't want to start all over, i suggest you get the Alternate Start mod.

[Yhwach]

Since it now fixes Emgone Takes a Lover and quite a few other nuisances I'd say it's very vital now.

[MortVent]

optional, as not all of the changes are fixes. Some are pet peeves.

And like all mods it's optional as the game was and is playable for most without it.

[ⒸⒶⓁⒸⒾⓊⓂ]

very essential. it fixes all recruitable merchants to be not broken af.

[bLaCkShAd0w]

I use it because they fix some bugs better than bethesda did:

An erroneous script once attached to PlayerPerk has been compiled to a stub to avoid letting it generate endless stack dumps which then impair performance. The script was removed from PlayerPerk officially in Patch 1.7, but the compiled code lingers behind due to Papyrus data baked in to saves started before that patch was released. (Bug #21655)

WorkshopScript: A thread lock in the DailyUpdate() function was not being handled correctly. This resulted in numerous instances of settler stats being listed incorrectly in the PipBoy. (Bug #20295)

WorkshopParentScript: Bad handling of the first element of the Workshop arrays due to checking >0 instead of >=0. (Bug #21014)

[Sabaithal]

The Unnofficial patch basically fixes everything that Bethesda doesn't care about, and the community does. It is not necessary, but it will probably smooth out the ride a little bit. Everyone who can use it probably should.

[JOW]

I have played over 2 thousand hours without it. I tried it a few times to see what it would do for Covenant. I didn't notice any positive change that it made anywhere. If some thing 'bugs' you about the game, though, I think that it's safe to try.

Edit: It does fix some spelling errors in the terminal stories.