- Make tweaks or fixes that improve the mod's quality of life. - Draft patches that creates incompatibilities/inconsistencies with this mod. - Provide translations of the mod to the language(s) of your choosing.
File credits
ArizonaDev - For granting me permission to use assets from Nova Arizona. Balebandr0 - Parting optimization tips for the mod. BourgeoisBanana - For their Hotel Completer Furniture Set. brayduck - For their Adobe and Shack Buildings. DarthFAnt0M - For their Wasteland Phone Booth Modder's Resource. Diegonom - Parting optimization tips for the mod and on the GECK. Jacksonelhage - For their Palm Tree Replacer. Kewin568 - For their Mounted Heads Resource. Nuke4Duke - For their Library of Modder's Resources. PistolPayback - For their palm tree assets and parting knowledge on the GECK. prodlimen - For the complete models of the Ultra Luxe, and Gomorrah. Seddon4494 - Their tutorials on using the GECK. Spifferino - For their Decal Billboards Resource. TrickyVein - For their Classic Fallout Architecture kit. UBERTWINK (fka friendlynonmurderingsort) - Sharing resources to aid VICE. Bethesda - Granting Obsidian the ability to make this game. Obsidian - Making this stellar RPG that many and myself keep coming back to. Matthew Perry "Benny" (RIP) - A talented, charismatic, and fellow gamer at heart. My uncle (RIP) - Loving uncle who cherished family and doing right by others. Peter Renaday (RIP) - Another talented voice, breathing life into various characters of the Mojave Wasteland. Ludo (RIP) - My best friend that got me through days of self-doubt and uncertainty. Miss you dearly bud.
Donation Points system
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- Blood Moon Brothel and The Miner's Guild are back. They're now on the other side of the junk fencing, tucked in a handcrafted back alley. They can be accessed through a marked manhole, or a door within Freeside. It occupies its own world space to avoid interferences.
- Used the same trick I did to manage memory usage in other areas on The Strip now. It's important you load VICE AFTER SOS to avoid odd object placement. Performance probably won't change much, but stability should.
- The Westside suburbs have been converted. One block is a cemetery, the other is a small plaza.
- The strip of rubbled out buildings near the Westside suburbs have been significantly overhauled. There's now more to the area than just being a sea of bricks.
- The lone ruined building and parking lot near the on-ramp to Fiend Territory now have buildings present there.
- Repainted the Nuka Cola Factory's parking lot. Was one of the first landscape edits I did, needed some updating. Also moved some foliage around.
- Overhauled the collapsed highway overpass in Northern Freeside/Crimson Caravan area. More rubble is present, mostly through the use of landscape editing.
- Aerotech's had quite a few changes and touch-ups. It's one of the first areas I've overhauled and felt it was time to revisit.
- Weapons will finally be confiscated upon entering Gary & Betty's. A bit crude on the approach for now. When I get the time, I'll replicate the experience as you would with the other casinos.
- Moved some foliage that was underneath some of the homes near NCR Sharecropper Farms that normally wouldn't be visible to the player.
- Adjusted Gary & Betty's interior lighting to a goldish color. Appears warm and inviting. Post-processing effects like NVR, ENB, or Reshade may not pick this up.
- The block across SSHQ has more sophistication to it now. Three buildings are present now.
- Added some detail to the I-15 roadway via landscape editing. The area now looks like it's had some storms blown through, accumulating centuries of sand and grit.
- Added various objects to the 'High Priority LOD' flag to balance RAM consumption, as pointed out by FireKahuna.
- Added more buildings around the Western Pump Station.
- Added some fencing and other decorations to the rooftops of Westside. Gives the buildings a little more scale and sophistication.
- Tweaked some window lights in Westside and GBGH.
- Tweaked more navmeshes.
- Reduced reference count on traffic lights I made in earlier versions.
- Removed some objects in Westside.
- Removed duplicates found in the North Vegas Drive-In.
- Removed a duplicate door.
- Inverted light emittance to some exterior windows. Some are left alone to set the scene better.
- Marked some leftover consumables the AI weren't meant to obtain in Gary & Betty's.
- Flattened the roads in The Strip. Meant to keep consistency with the intro cinematic.
- Some NPCs added now have the ability to trade/serve the player.
- Optimized Westside a little by changing sidewalk pieces underneath buildings to smaller ones that aren't visible to the player.
- Further optimizations done by "removing" rubble piles. Mitigates draw call count. I sculpted around the piles of rubble with the landscaping tool before I had repurposed them into objects the mod adds. No vanilla references have been deleted. Slight loss of detail with the bits of concrete and rebar sticking out from the original piles, but is a fair compromise in my book. This has only been done around the Vegas outskirts.
Version 1.6
- Repurposed disabled vanilla objects by changing them into different forms. Frees up more memory, and allows me to delete new references I introduced to an area.
- Added more phone booths in locations that seemed appropriate to have them.
- Added actual roads in the northern Vegas area, they're not just drawn in anymore.
- Added a gas pump and additional details in front of the destroyed building in the Ruins of Jean. It's a nod to Terrible's Gas Station.
- Added some dumpsters over at NCRCF, near the entrance. Meant to simulate where pre-war waste services would collect.
- Added details to Boulder, similar to what you'd find in East Vegas.
- Added a rail station east of Boulder City. Found it strange that the tracks just sort of ended at the ravine. It appears complete now.
- Added watchtowers and a utility shed at the Boulder City trainyard. Simulates pre-war work posts. Some rundown fencing and staircases can be found as well.
- Added a bus shelter, fire hydrant, and some subtle decorative lights near some trees in Jacobstown.
- Added some minor details to the western parking lot in Nellis.
- Added empty billboards to the front of the Calville Bay boathouse.
- More navmesh tweaks.
- Raised East Vegas's noise barrier up a bit to show the trim.
- Changed a guard tower into a sandbag fort in East Vegas. Looks better and is more sensible.
- Changed the appearance of Mole Rat Ranch... again. It's a little more uniform now, and steals less memory.
- Reduced some of the pavement chunks present in the parking lots. Painted the landscapes in these places for a similar effect.
- Cleared the plugin of some old records, and assets that are no longer in use.
- Reluctantly, trimmed some more detail out of East Vegas.
- Removed the Utility Buildings near the Eastern Sacked Caravan. Doing so cleared 12mb of space...
- Removed some duplicate corn stalks in East Vegas.
- Removed a sign at REPCONNHQ that Desert Landscapes covers.
Version 1.5
- Meshes and textures are now packed in a BSA for faster loading.
- Blood Moon Brothel's been cut. It's too resource heavy to have in the same area as the other new buildings unfortunately. If I find somewhere that looks like it could fit in alright, it could maybe come back.
- The classic building near Gun Runners has been relocated and swapped to a smaller size. It's now close to where Blood Moon Brothel was to sort of fill the void in that area.
-The gas station near the overpass has been cut as well. Was also performance intensive, and wasn't sensible near the house it was by. It's been swapped for a simpler urban sidewalk with planters and benches.
- Fleshed out the area where there's two ranch homes north of Crimson Caravan. Looks more like a neighborhood now.
- The crane in North Vegas can now be seen within Freeside and Old Mormon Fort.
- Relocated Cole & Wendy to one of the new homes in the new North Vegas neighborhood. More sensible and compatible with anything that occupies the vanilla homes.
- Repositioned Harvest Elementary. The school faces west instead of south. It also has a bit more detail added.
- Made some changes to the barriers in Westside. I hate some of the boxcar barricades in this game, so I swapped them with things I think look better and still fit in with the environment.
- Toned down the variety of cars in East Vegas. Things'll look samey, but should (hopefully) bring more stability to the area.
- Changed the two homes around Eastside to the models similar to the ones near them. Samey, and less detailed, but more consistent, and performance friendly.
- Changed a car into a static variant, as they physics broke the scene it was portraying.
- Similar to what was done with the gas station, Buck's Diner has been reduced to more planters and palm trees.
- The rooms and foyer of Gary & Betty's are finished and filled with patrons now.
- Tweaked some packages on some NPCs.
- Tweaked more navmeshes.
- Tweaked a SCOL that had bugged textures.
- Tweaked a trap near NCR Sharecropper Fields. Should be dangerous when inspecting it now.
- Named the street thugs near North Vegas and gave one a weapon I had forgotten to assign to them. They'll now bark at you if you're too close to their camp for some immersion.
- Added a few more NPCS in Westside. An herald, listeners, bystanders, and a trader. As usual, they're ambient, and don't do much else.
- Added collisions where elevated NPCs are perched to prevent them from being on the ground.
- Added some occlusion planes in various areas to try and siphon more performance gains.
- Moved a phone booth in Westside and removed another next to the gas station outside of McCarran.
- Reverted a traffic light back to its vanilla position.
- Adjusted the height on some sidewalks.
- Switched one of the Rita's Café Decal into a Sunset Sarsaparilla one.
- Removed a bugged SCOL.
- Removed and disabled some more fire barrels for performance.
- Removed some effects in East Vegas.
- Removed a crate that couldn't be seen.
- Removed some objects near Crimson Caravan (Tents & lights)
- Removed more duplicate objects.
Version 1.4
- The Eastern side of town's been overhauled. More buildings, people and houses in the area. Still a quiet part of town, but now has some visual elements to it.
- The Followers Medical Clinic's been completely redone... again. Looks more like a clinic, less of a wannabe hospital.
- Mole Rat Ranch had some work done too. Sort of reduced it back to a more simpler design, but not to where it's back to being the awkward state it ended up as either (This area's just weird in general lol...).
- Las Vegas Police Department, LVPD Holding Block B, and the Spelunker's Club are inaccesible for the time being. They will likely return and be redone in a future update. There wasn't much to these interiors, so their absence shouldn't effect much.
- Added two parking lots just outside of North Vegas where the corn fields are. One's lonely and abandoned, the other has a car fort with some occupants there.
- Added a back road and two homes a little south of the Medical Clinic. A road's been placed between the two vanilla homes to simulate a small neighborhood being there.
- Added a gas station near the Hostetler Home.
- Added a grocery store a little north of the Medical Clinic and Crimson Caravan. This replaces the adobe homes that were present there from previous versions.
- Added a school bus and student pickup next to Harvest Elementary.
- Added some weathered fencing around the corn field in the north.
- Added some farmers in North Vegas and gave them routines. They'll go about their business, protecting their piece.
- Added a few more things to The Strip Gift Shop.
- Added SCOLs for performance.
- Added another office flat around the south end of Vegas (will further detail in a future update).
- Removed Shadow's Hut and tweaked the appearance of the Spelunker's Club in favor of placing some additional buildings where they were located.
- Removed imposter meshes for one of the buildings.
- Reverted some SCOLs to singular form.
- Turned the magazines at the Strip Gift Shop into statics.
- Made some NPC and equipment balances.
- Changed ID names on some NPCs.
- More navmesh tweaks.
Version 1.3
- Reverted the water height back to default at Mole Rat Ranch. Should maybe help those who are having performance issues in that area.
- Added occlusion planes to the new buildings from 1.2.
- Deleted the water in the water trough at the Blood Moon Brothel. Should also help the area out with performance.
- Deleted most of the flames at the Fiend Bonfire (this game really does not like fire). Again, performance should hopefully improve.
- Moved some barricades that were hidden from view and scaled them down to fit the doorframes they were nearby.
- Moved a poster forward at a bus stop to stop z-fighting.
- Moved the street cleaner away from the door where White Glove Staff go to receive guest meals and drinks.
- Removed the barriers, sign, and note to the UL Dining Court. The area now has a waiter that patrols and guests dining at tables.
- Removed two room markers that were somehow placed near the downed plane near the Sacked Caravan, south of McCarran.
- Removed some unnecessary edits. Should hopefully resolve some reports of the The 38 and Ultra-Luxe disappearing.
- More navmesh tweaks.
Version 1.2
- Added some buildings in the Eastern Vegas area. My attempt to make the region look less like a brick swamp and hold a fair balance of destroyed and intact buildings. Let me know what you guys think.
- Added some shrubs to the front of the LVPD.
- Added the New Vegas Steel Cargo Crane into the WastelandNVMini space, so it's visible from Vault 3 now.
- Moved the Westside Train Station Door. Should be even easier to access
- More navmesh tweaks.
- Scaled the Fancy Lad Decal near Mole Rat Ranch down a bit.
- Marked some more doors as 'inaccessible', for now.
- SCOL'd a bunch more objects to (try to) reduce draw calls.
- Turned some containers into statics (I doubt anyone's placed items into anything, but if you have, grab them before you update. Otherwise, they're gone).
- Turned a blank billboard into the smaller variant near the Nuka Cola Plant.
- Turned the Nuka Cola Plant Garage Door into a static.
- Fixed another NPC that wasn't speaking when activated.
- Removed the sign laying on top of the sinking diner.
- Copied over the Ultra Luxe model in attempts to remedy the missing backside folks have been reporting. If this doesn't work, I have to assume it's something on the user's end.
Version 1.1
- Added two ranch homes, and three adobe buildings, near the Northern Freeside Entrance. No interiors for them currently. Plain for now, but will get some details later.
- Added more ambient NPCs in Westside with accompanying details to some.
- Added some detail to the Western Westside Entrance.
- Added some missing lights to shacks.
- Added shrubs I forgot to place at the boarding house in Westside.
- Added details to a shack I placed, but forgot to fill out.
- Removed some dust devils in The Alley. They chew performance a bit.
- Removed a shack on the Westside overpass.
- Removed object duplicates.
- Revised the crane area near the Freeside North Entrance. Foreman's Cabin has been cut.
- Moved a lit window that had some bad z-fighting. Adjusted the trim too.
- Moved a tin can light up slightly near one of the Westside shack houses.
- Fixed Westside Train Station door. Should be easier to enter now.
- Fixed some NPCs not speaking when activated.
- Marked some items as 'Owned'.
- Marked Cole & Wendy's Home as 'Off Limits'.
- Disabled an occlusion plane near the Ultra Luxe to see if it fixes a bug some have had with it being see-through.
- Lucky 38 should be visible out in the wasteland now.
- SCOL'd a couple objects together to squeeze a little more performance in. Drew some occlusion planes in some spots as well.
- Lots of navmesh tweaks.
Version 1.0
Initial release
VISUALS IMPROVED, CONTENT EXPANDED
Welcome to the city of VICE
VICE, similar to other landscape overhaul projects, is a mod focused on filling the surroundings of Vegas to look more like a city rather than a few tired, crumbling buildings.
No. You're not getting this unfortunately, but it is a reference I return to quite often, and desperately piece what's possible out of it... It's painful to see what could've been. I remember seeing this day one, thinking to myself "3D Fallout has a Rapture now." We were nowhere close to this sadly...
The city of Vegas was depicted as this massive sprawl in trailers and concept art. However, it doesn't take long for one to realize that the areas around Vegas are quite starved of visual details. As fans know, New Vegas had a troubled development, low budget, and some suffocating deadlines to hit. Fortunately, the community over the years have taken to filling some of the blanks in various locations to help the game look a little more complete.
VICE attempts to be another page in that effort.
I took the time to bring as much sense to an area, before and after the bombs had fallen, while working in the parameters of it all appearing in a "vanilla plus" sort of manner. These additions/revisions should help these locations feel a little more lived-in.
DETAILS INCLUDE:
- Pre-war police, firefighter, and military presence strewn about - Downed planes, traffic & wreckage - Diners, cafes, and drive-ins - Public utilities & spaces (Pre/Post) - Squatter camps - Police, fire, train & gas stations - School & churches - Offices and production plants - A new saloon, brothel, casino, & mining guild - Expansions to cut areas in The Strip (Simple Open Strip is required. Read further for details) - Drug & whoring dens - Advertising (Pre/Post) - Detailed cargo bay around New Vegas Steel - Left over crane and dozers from walling off Freeside and The Strip - Dead strip mall along the western barriers of New Vegas - Reimaged Fiend Territory - SSHQ is now reflected as a two story building, with additional details. - New ghost town settlement called 'The Alley', just a little northeast of SSHQ - A car tunnel added at the dead end road near Cook-Cook's camp - More windows, specifically in Westside (they light up too) - Some boarded buildings are explorable now - More NPCs, some with patrols, friendly and hostile - A Crimson Caravan staging area for cargo loading/unloading, additional (static) defenses, and rest stop - Notes and terminals for more worldbuilding (Some possibly leaning into quest ideas I have) - Some classic architecture veterans of the series will recognize - Restored details seen in the intro cinematic for consistency - Much more that I'm probably forgetting... and more to possibly come
REQUIREMENTS
Only applies if you're using the Main and 'Strip Only'. You do not need these if you're using the 'Wasteland Only' version. Simple Open Strip by Qolore7 - SOS assists VICE in expanding The Strip by granting access to areas the player normally couldn't venture, bringing more to the visual gallery that is New Vegas. Nothing of gameplay to really add, just a little more world building, and makes Vegas appear larger than vanilla.
Lucky 38 Lights Redone by Nehred - Since The 38's final model was designed to only be seen from one side of The Strip, wandering behind it would reveal that it's missing most of it's other half. Nehred's mod not only offers a revamped and complete 3D model of The 38, but some additional features to it as well. I also have a version that only uses the base and leaves the tower out in case you want to use a different model of The 38 instead.
It is strongly advised to run this through LODGen. Both 'Object' and 'Terrain' LOD have been added/altered, and are likely to change between updates.
You are welcome to tweak this to your liking and share your changes with others. Credits are all I'll ask of you. Most mods away from the inner and outer Vegas area should be fine. I have some patches available for other landscape overhauls I use personally. You'll find them in the optional files of the mod. I'll do my best to try to cover what I can, but I'm a one man army, so if someone can beat me to it, they're welcome to post, or share it here with me and your credit will be rightfully mentioned.
This mod's going to have regular updates, so if you like what you see here, keep it tracked and see what's to come.
Incompatible Mods
Classic Adobe Buildings - While a patch is available, I'm no longer making attempts to fix it anymore, as the results seem to vary from user to user. Maybe I'll try things again once more, but it's been a battle with this mod, and where I don't use it myself, I don't really have an urgency or desire to work on it.
* This mod is no longer available. Fortunately, Freeside Facelift LITE by root1, is a safe alternative. Nearly identical to the original, but with some tweaks and optimizations made for a smoother experience.
NOTE: Most of the screenshots taken were ran with these mods activated as well. This was intentional to show the kind of scope you can get with maxing your game out with other landscape mods as well. Performance will vary of course.