Nuclear LOD is a LOD patch project, that optimises and fixes existing models from both vanilla and almost all other LOD mods, while providing additional LOD models, higher quality and fixed LOD textures, additional patches for texture mods and optional support for specular lighting (for bright highlights in distant object LOD).

Requirements
- Following the LOD Guide for Viva New Vegas, which provides all required LOD mods, the correct install order, and working LOD for your New Vegas modlist.
- Regenerate your object LOD and tree LOD via the guide after any updates. Requires the newest xLODGen build (aka FNVLODGen), build 127+, as per the guide.

If you do not follow the LOD Guide, please do not expect support.

Install Order
- Your texture mods here
- LOD Guide mods
- Nuclear Core
- Nuclear Trees
- High Priority Core
- High Priority Trees + any patches for High Priority
- Nuclear LOD Patches for texture mods + Specular if you use it

If you use these, place them after Nuclear LOD
- Physically Based Vehicles
- Rectified Water Towers
- Sandy Roads
- Rock Remesh
- Sandstone Desert
- Decent Rubble Piles
- Decent Muck Pools
- Industrial Pipe LOD FIx
- TTW Mossy Rocks - UHQ Standalone


Thanks to all the extensive LOD mods across the Nexus, LOD coverage in Fallout New Vegas has reached a point where most essential models have been covered. Unfortunately with extended render distances, LOD can use a significant amount of RAM at higher fBlock settings. Nuclear LOD aims to reduce the size of various models with minimal to no loss of quality, reducing the overall cost of LOD. Vert counts and tris have been reduced across the board, with additional per model optimisations simplifying detail where the change would not be visible from a distance. In testing with extended render distances this can save somewhere between 70-80mb of RAM usage without loss of detail.

Beyond optimising these models, Nuclear LOD fixes various issues with textures, models and the load order for LOD, prioritising optimised meshes between LOD mods and fixing existing assets for maximum compatibility with various engine fixes. This includes missing specular data for a vast majority of assets, allowing the use of specular lighting (bright highlights) for a better matching distance. This requires support for any texture mods used atop vanilla, with patches provided for most major texture mods (still WIP)

Also provides some new models for LOD used for landscaping across the New Vegas and DC landscapes. All Rubbles Piles variants are covered, used extensively for landscaping around western Vegas and the DC ruins. Additional building-kit meshes used in various ruins have also been added, such as small stone walls used around Vault 3 and various ruins corner meshes. 


Merged Fixes
If you use any of these, you can uninstall them:
- LOD Additions and Improvements - Billboard LOD fix
- All miscellaneous patches for LOD additions such as the rail fix and hanger fix.
- The VNV LOD Fixes resources (not the plugin) are covered jointly by both Nuclear LOD and Decent LOD Kit.
- Any Tree LOD fix mods are covered by Nuclear LOD
- Any Joshua Tree or other tree LOD fixes are superceeded by the new tree LOD in Nuclear Trees
- The Vanilla Tree Billboards optional file on the FNVLODGen page is fully replaced by Nuclear Trees
- Corn LOD, included in Nuclear Trees 4.0

Nuclear Core - Specular Requirements
- Updated xLODGen, build 127+. This specific build and above is required, and if you are experiencing broken specular the first thing I would do is reinstall xLODGen. Even if you updated very recently, this may not be recent enough. Assume it is out of data and update your xLODGen.
- Updated LOD Fixes and Improvements plugin (1.30+) for working object LOD specular.
- Correct settings when generating LOD. Specular data is stored in the alpha channel of normals, which is removed with DXT1. DXT5 preserves the alpha channel and as such preserves specular data. Object LOD must be generated with DXT5 for normals and 'Keep Specular' enabled.
- The install order above, Nuclear LOD overwrites files to ensure a final output that will provide the most optimised and correct LOD output, and the specular patches match this. Any missing mod (especially Wasted LOD Cliffs) will cause this issue.
- Nuclear LOD overwriting other texture mods. If you have NMC, Legacy Reborn, OJO, FO3 HD etc overwriting Nuclear LOD, you will have broken LOD textures that provide incorrect specular data in their normals. The SALVO patch atm covers most texture mods, and I'll be adding separate patches for each individual major texture pack so that custom installs can also have proper LOD. So far NMC, Ojo and FO3 HD are covered, as well as vanilla.