Modding With the GECK, Part 1 tutorial - Fallout 3 Reborn: A Realism Mod for Fallout 3

Hello, I'm Adam, and this tutorial will allow even the biggest modding newbies to start work on a basic mod. I made these tutorials so that people can play around with my mod, or make their own. I realize that the official Fallout 3 site has some tutorials, but those are more based on level design, rather than gameplay. These tutorials are meant for people who want to make conversion mods like mine. The tutorial is written in several easy steps, with big pictures, so don't worry about getting lost. feel free to leave a comment if you need clarification on something. Enough talking, lets get started.

1) First, you need the GECK, get it here: Download

2) After you've installed the GECK, start the program and navigate to the "File" tab in the toolbar, select "Data...".

3) A box called "Data" should have popped up. Select "Fallout3.esm" (make sure a black X appears on the left of the title). Press "OK", and wait for it to finish loading.

4) Press the save button, and save your mod as something you like. I called my "tutorial_mod", but you can be more creative than that, if you wish.

At first the GECK can be overwhelming. You have data that controls 90% of the Fallout 3 game right at your fingertips. I know that when I first used the GECK, I had no idea where to start. For the sake of simplicity, I've decided to start with a weapon mod.

5) Lets get started with some weapon mods. First, lets use the "Object Window\" to find the "Weapon" sub-section. (You can find it under the "Items" section).

6) Now, click the little [+] icon beside the "Weapon" section. Then click the [+] on the "Weapons" sub-section. Now, select the "1HandPistol" section.

The weapon we're going to be working on is the ever-so-useless "Chinese Pistol". Perhaps second only to the .32 Pistol in terms of uselessness. We will be focusing on naming techniques and conventions, damage, ammo use, projectiles, and clip size.

7) Double-click on the "WeapChinesePistol" item in the "1HandPistol" section. This is the Chinese Pistol, as you might be able to guess from the Editor ID.

The GECK has two names for most things: and in-game name, which the player see's when they're roaming the wasteland, and an "Editor ID", which is only used in the GECK (for scripts, and other references). For example: if a script is going to add this pistol into the player's inventory, the script line will say: "player.additem WeapChinesePistol 1 1", not "player.additem Chinese Pistol 1 1" (the two ones at the end denote the amount of an item to add, and whether the player should be alerted or not). We'll do a lesson on scripting later.

8) In the top left-hand corner of the Weapon box, there is a "Name" section, change the name from "Chinese Pistol" to whatever you want. I called it a "C96 Mauser", its real-life name.

9) Time to test, save your work, exit the GECK (it can take a while, be patient), and enable the mod (I recommend you disable all other mods while you're testing your mod).

10) Load up Fallout 3 with you mod running, and find a Chinese Pistol, or cheat for one with this code "player.additem 00004325 1", minus the quotation marks, obviously.

If everything has been done correctly, your Chinese Pistol should now be named whatever you decided to call it. Time to make it do some serious damage.

11) Time to work on the damage this baby deals, go to the "Damage" box, and put "25" in there, instead of "4". Save and test the mod again, if you wish.

12) Done blasting the citizens of Megaton? Alright, lets make this into a burst-firing pistol. I think a two burst shot is decent. First, change the "Ammo Use" box to read 2, so that the gun consumes two rounds per pull of the trigger. Next, change the "# Projectiles" box to read "2" instead of "1".

13) To compensate for the doubled ammo use, lets change the clip size. I think 16 shots is a decent amount. Some simple math, and you can figure out that this gives you 8 shots before you need to reload.

That's all for Part 1. Feel free to experiment with modding the default weapons, take a look at the stats, some are quite self-explanatory. In Part 2, we'll get around to making new items, more depth with naming conventions, ID's and such. I hope this tutorial has been of some help to you guys. Take care,

Adam