Okay, so mod support is now official for Fallout 4 as of 1.05.
The game placed load order in alphabetic order
Now while it is possible to reorder the order manually, this shakeup has generated a host of bugs.
I won't bother posting an exhaustive list of the mods being used or the bugs being experienced as you get on some forums as there are too many variables at play. Instead my question in relation to the 1.05 update is
- Are there universal principles that can be adhered to when considering the load order of one's mods that is most likely to reduce in-game bugs.
That is to say, should alterations in relation to AI, keywords, gameplay changes, texture alteration, etc. be subject to any particular order, or is it inherently trial-and-error?
Best Answer
You should definitely be using LOOT on PC as it takes 99% of the guess work out of load orders.
The previous version of LOOT (known as BOSS) worked on a masterlist system where it could order every single mod it knew into an order it knew worked, based on community feedback. However, it had the problem of not knowing what to with mods that it didn't recognise. LOOT is a lot smarter. LOOT can look at each mods metadata and determine if it has any dependencies on other mods or overwrites any other mods, and what it overwrites. It then builds a load order based on a masterlist for mods it does know and the metadata for those it doesn't.
The remaining 1% is in the event that LOOT recognises two mods as affecting the same resources but can't put one above the other. LOOT will then fall back on an arbitrary method of ordering them, which may result in some functionality being lost. However, this an extreme fringe case.