In Fallout: New California you play as the kid from Vault 18. Orphan. Loner. Mutant. On the last big night of the Vault Ball season in 2260, you make a fateful decision that will change the course of your life -- and eventually the future of the New California Republic.
Vault 18 is at the heart of the California Wasteland high in the San Bernardino Mountains, and it's legendary Wasteland Scouts have managed to keep its secrets safe for decades despite the wars raging beyond the great door. In their old age, the Scouts have created a new generation to take their place... if their rebellious adopted kids survive the Enclave threat brewing within their own ranks.
You will face the New California Republic under president Wendell Peterson, the New Reno Mob's Bishop Family, the remnant Shi Clans, The Enclave Leonidas Squadron, the Super Mutant Army, and the bloodthirsty Raider Alliance that have banded together in the remote Athens-Tec Uranium Mine off the Long I-15.
Through them all you'll choose your path from SPECIAL dialog options, acquired PERKs, and travel with 8 possible companions depending on your choices. You'll enjoy two new radio stations with unique music, hours of voice acting, and professional grade presentation.
There is always another path to take in New California. But War? War never changes.
An Alternate Start in Vault 18 with a New Player Character and Main Quest.
A New Intro Video to really give it that "New Game" feeling.
An Ornate Main Quest Line with Compelling Side Quests rich in Fallout & Character Lore.
Hours of Voice Acting recorded at pro-quality in Radian-Helix Media's Tucson, Az Studio.
A Very Large Worldspace in California - The Black Bear Mountain National Forest.
An Epic War between The Super Mutants, The Raider Alliance, The Enclave, and The New California Republic.
A Pirate Radio Station DETH 981 with 2 New DJs and Quest + Crafting + Perk Unlocking Segments.
A News Radio Station called NCRPR - New California Republic Radio - with quest updates in the News.
6 Potential Human Companions and 2 Robot Companions available depending on player choices.

Step1
Download the latest version of New California.
Step2
Unpack the 7Zip Files to your Desktop. Run the EXE.
Make sure your EXE is Run As Administrator.
Step3
USE FOMM OR NMM TO RUN Fallout: New California.
Using your favourite Mod Manager, apply Archive Invalidation.
Step4
Check New California.esm in your DATA tab on the Launcher, or your Mod Manager.
Also check NewCalifornia DLC Control.esp and NewCalifornia Courier Stash Control.esp if you have DLC installed.
DLC patches will be auto installed if needed, but if you don't need them and activate them anyway, they will crash your game.
Step5
Play!
Don't forget that New California is started from the New Game Menu!!
Your New Vegas save games will be totally unaffected.

Since FNC was released in October 2018, thousands of bugs have been fixed, the world has been improved, and adjustments to game-play balance have made the experience much more smooth and enjoyable. This update's change-log is 7 Pages Long.
We re-compressed the meshes and textures, so this is a full re-download. Not a small patch. These new NIFs should avoid random crashes, caused by the way the meshes were originally exported from 3dsMax to Nifscope, a 3rd Party mod tool not issued by Bethesda or Gambryo, which were prone to corruption. Same with the DDS textures, also with no official tools, and had introduced incorrect MipMapping (the way the computer scales textures that are further or closer on your screen) that caused performance issues. This has been an ongoing situation and why we had to rebuild and re-release the full game 3 times (the 3 in BETA 231.)
231 also contains a great deal of world map adjustments and new exploration content, and overall improvements to the look of things outside the Vault. New notes and discoverable locations now pepper the world, and your bridge to New Vegas after the end of FNC should be smooth as butter, no matter how many mods for vanilla you have adding junk to Doc Mitchell's house.
Subtitles have been corrected universally and a lot of small issues and bugs have been fixed regarding conversations that lacked cohesion and needed to match voice files.
Grenades have universally been removed from mutant load orders and "infinite spawns" of background actors during large events were reduced.

And Brazilian Portuguese is underway in our Discord.
No new quest content or character expansion has happened since 2019's BETA 221.
I (Thaiauxn, Brandan Lee) wrote a 1.0 Design Document as a postmortem, (You should read them!) and left it up to the community to implement the rest. So far no interest from the modding community has materialized to implement that new dialogue, which would expand the companions and replace the ending encounter with the Father.The work would be difficult technically, and very expensive hiring 7 new actors and implementing their voices, but would seriously improve the mod's story-line and tone.
The work isn't impossible, but the intimate tying into existing scripting requires you study FNC's codes and level design, with many very delicate scripts and trigger boxes that if implemented poorly would cause a cascade of broken events and bugs, which need to be fixed as you go. Replacing the dialogue is easy, but it's adding wholly new characters in place of the ones that already exist while splicing them into the main quest that checks to see if they are present or not in multiple branching paths.
Again, it's not impossible, a dedicated modder could follow my design documents, implement the dialogue, and script the variables. Most of that work is already done for you. But it's a matter of willpower community volunteers putting in the efforts together.
I wrote the companion & ending update to address the criticism FNC received on launch from New Vegas players, especially on Reddit, but I knew all those issues were there looooong before release. There just wasn't much we could do about it. This mod was a massive sacrifice for us, and adding even more content to it was a crippling prospect. It had to be a community volunteer effort, and with so many big mods fiercely competing for talented modders, so far no one has taken on the challenge.
Remember, 99% of large mods fail, as was reiterated by Josh Sawyer in that FNC live stream. Making it to a BETA release is big deal. That just doesn't happen often.
Not working on FNC has allowed me to publish a physical card game with some friends, write the main quest for a Tycoon game, develop a RimWorld mod that may well be a game in its own right, and start a new Indie Game that I've always dreamed of creating.
If that 1.0 content ever gets its patron? That'll cap it off for good for me, and I'd come back to work on it a little more around Project Morningstar.
Otherwise, I'm still on this page daily updating for 232 and beyond, and doing tech help on our Discord. Our discord has helped thousands of players get their game running. If you need help feel free to drop by and ask in one of the channels set up to do just that.
Check us out on our: Discord.gg. You can also keep track of us on ModDB, Fallout Nexus, or Facebook. We've got an online community centered around each one.
Also watch us on our new Patreon! It's unrelated to our mod's development, but instead focus on the development of our card game STAVE and our indie game Project Morningstar.
Thain
It's been 7 months since the last update. This is the next major stop of the roadmap to 1.0. One update will remain after this and then the mod is complete...
A brand new EXE based installer. Patch your New Vegas to perform as expected and install the mod and compatibility patches all in one file. Check it!
The latest patch fixes hundreds of bugs and improves performance, crashes, and many other bugs! Plus, new installation and modding guide videos!
Fallout: New California BETA 201! Out now! Come get it! :D
This is the last major release for Fallout: New California. The vast majority of reported quest issues have been resolved and the gameplay is much more...
OLD file. Get 231 Full. This is a small but powerful Patch + Upgrade for FNC BETA 221 FULL. Just drag and drop into your DATA folder.
Old file. Grab BETA 231. This is the patch to upgrade from 213 to 221. It's smaller than the full version, an doesn't contain all you need to play unless...
Old file. Grab BETA 231. A massive improvement over previous iterations, 221 is more stable and has better performance, new side quests, rewards for exploration...
Old file. Grab 221 FULL above or patch to 221. This is for legacy content only.
ARCHIVED. Old file. Grab 213. Its a full re-download and restart, but worth it.
Thaiauxn
Have you ever considered adding a house for the main character party? It would be nice to have a place where we can store equipment and send companions.
I was not a big fan of having to send almost all the companions into slavery in Raider route, although I understand that they had to "hide" somewhere.
Some abandoned property in the wilderness (perhaps mentioned in ranger records) that is still in good condition would be ideal and it would solve a lot of problems. It would also facilitate some of your future plans such as "companions romance" and "companions quests".
There's a bunch in 231.
My bad.
I have to start reading change logs :-)
You've already added a lot of stuff compared to the launch.
I can not wait to see what the future brings...
P.S.
Are there any things that ordinary mortals like me can help with? This is one of the projects that I would really like to see successfully completed, so even though I'm not a programmer, I would like to offer a helping hand.
Encourage modders who can help!
Kentington (another FNV moder who is tapped on the game) and I just made an mod that adds ship combat and interplanetary travel to RimWorld. You can play and rate that: Steamcommunity.com
Or join our Patreon so we can work on Morningstar in peace: Patreon.com
Hey did you saw this: Nexusmods.com
People saying massive fps boost, would be nice to see if it fixes most of the performance problems from FNC.
File loading will be faster, LOD switching will be faster with less stuttering, but not overall FPS in heavy scenes.
I remember seeing somewhere that this works with EVE (Essential Visual Enhancements) is that still the case?
It does and it doesn't. EVE is very messy with its particle spawn count and high resolution textures that last a very long lifetime. Expect stuttering on big explosions with more than a couple weapons firing and crashes in intense battle scenes.
*SPOILRER ALERT!*
Hey Thaiauxn, I was wondering if during the process of writing endings if any of your team considered making one where it's revealed that the courier is actually the child of the "Star Player" rather than them being one and the same?
Originally I intended them to be totally different characters and never meantion the other at all. I thought the very idea of bridging to New Vegas was going to result in too many hanging threads we could never afford to attach quests to and add a bunch of unearned twists. BUT, because so many people asked for the ending which goes to New Vegas with all their gear and conmpanions as the courier, I went with that. And while that needed more time to cook in the Father conversation, which I rewrote, and more content from the companions, which I also rewrote, the ending videos as they are will stand as pretty damn good. They came out good enough that I felt we earned the bridge to New Vegas, the transition was super smooth and came together very well. The Father needs to be redone and redact the cloning ****, no one like it, including me. But other than that, it's the ending Project Brazil players asked for and confirmed repeatedly in private. Then it went public and the part of Reddit and NMA that haaaaates mods and "fan fiction" **** the bed, and to be honest if they hate my work I'm glad. I wouldn't want to make something they enjoy. For everyone else I'm happy if this gets picked up by another modder who continues to work on it and change the most egregious parts where it's obvious we ran out of momentum and volunteer hours. With some revisions and expansions which I wrote or someone else is willing to write, it could be much better.
Cool beans, I wanted to ask purely out of curiosity, I remember playing the beta when it first came out and was very curious in what direction the story was heading. After Playing and beating the mod a few (thousand) times, I definitely agree the bridge to New Vegas was earned. I also agree with you regarding The Father, and that his story in relation to the player is... Interesting? So it could use a revision but I believe the basis for his motivation to create a new species of super mutants is still solid. As for people upset regarding "fan fiction" ****... I mean, I believe the purpose of this mod (correct me if I'm wrong) is to simply add extra content for players to enjoy while providing a basis for people's own ideas for who the courier was in the past. But you know, haters going to hate. I, and many others, love this mod and appreciate the time and effort you guys put in to bring your vision to life. I do hope that if or when another modder picks this up and works with you in revising it, that it includes even more options of what happened to the Star player and his companions (and perhaps even an option where the courier is actually the child of the Star player and one of the companions or actually not related at all hmmm?) Still, that's asking a lot from you, when you and your team have already given up so much of your time to deliver us this great experience. You guys should be proud and deserve a spa day for what you've accomplished already = )
We actually never got any kind of tangible reward for making this mod at all. :p
You can read the full postmortem design document here: Docs.google.com
This isn't the rewrite I would do if I had a budget and secure team, mind you. If I COULD, I would revise the beginning so the player isn't some kind of hero at all, juts some human in the wrong place at the wrong time, brought back to Vault 18 after getting shot by a Super Mutant while Rossman and the Wasteland Scout were defending their home from some Raiders. This would let the player determine all their characteristics during a brief medical exam and interrogation by the Overseer on what they know about the world around them: their home, their family, their job, etc... Then be given a chance to earn citizenship in their thriving underground city that remains independent from the NCR by strength and politics, trading with the outside.
I'd still have the 3 major outdoor factions: Super Mutants would play as big a role as the NCR and Raiders, and I'd still provide the player with the opportunity to join the Enclave or Wasteland Scouts, but wouldn't start the Vault Civil War until they've been in and out of Vault 18 using it as a hub for several missions, and I'd make that route fully non-linear (it's the way it is because of resource and time constraints.)
I'd also rip out the ending totally and ignore New Vegas except in scant references, still set 20 years before FNV during the presidency of Windell Peterson following the impeachment of Johanna Tibbet.
I'd focus more on the Raiders and their Chinese, Spanish, and Tribal Pidgeon English and Southern Slang, giving each Raider Faction a fleshed out Warlord and side quests to gain their favor. Instead of Elsdragon singling out the player from the start, have the player earn their stripes before ever getting his attention.
Same with the NCR. The player only arrives there as a refugee of the conflict like anyone else and has to barter, trade, or take mercenary contracts to gain attention. Maybe even give speeches to revolutionary citizens tired of the corruption and run against the Senate and Mob.
The Super Mutants have been carrying out experiments to resurrect their dead god, and bring The Master back. They've formed an independent city of mutants around Daggerpoint and spread a "meaty vine" that grows like a cancer around them, causing illness in the nearby communities. The player can trade with them in the safe zone, or try to get close to their leaders and infiltrate their ranks, possibly become a mutant themselves.
I'd also give the Enclave a bigger presence, and let the player have their power armor, weapons, and vertibirds for the mid game to late game events when their clandestine micro-faction springs the trap. Or allow the player to fight them and win. I'd focus more on their motivations and cult-like philosophy, more on their goals for human purity and American pride, and more justifications for their otherwise inexcusable deeds.
But, that would take a budget. It'd be Fallout 5. Not a mod.