I’m going to start off by saying that Niero is, hands down, one of my favourite modders for Fallout 4. His mods are mostly clothing and weaponry, steeped in lore that somehow fit into the wasteland, and stand out at the same time. His work all looks like it was put together by a team of professionals, instead of one solitary person. The models are beautiful, the UV maps are flawless, and the clothing rigging looks natural. The pieces from each outfit mesh fabulously with pieces from other outfits, and I’m usually wearing parts from at least four of these mods, simultaneously. Also, almost all of these items come with unique mods and/or headlamps which cast shadows.
I think one of my favourite things about the Niero mods is that all of them come with a couple colours, but he provides, for free, 4K skin packs on his Gumroad page or his Patreon. Providing them on an external site speeds up your downloads too!
Niero mods never clash with any other mods I’m using, and they seem to be happy anywhere in my load order. I don’t even test new ones anymore, because I’m comfortable dumping a new Niero mod into an existing play through without worrying about breaking my save. I can’t not use Niero mods in my play throughs.
My one single only tiny iiitty bitty gripe is that Niero needs to use more purple. I’m very sad there is no purple of any sort in the Stridgudae gear. I need me some purple. But I kinda want everything everywhere to be purple all the time. Perhaps the lack of purple is good for me.
This is going to be long. Strap in.
COURSER STRIGIDAE
The Strigidae suit is a derivative of the Chinese stealth suit from Fallout 3 with vanilla 4 courser-esque elements woven throughout. It has the stealth suit visor and tight fitting element of the former, but the ridges of the vanilla coursers’ shoulders implemented as details here and there.
There are gloves, a coat, the suit itself, and the mask, each with various options ranging from full coverage to slooty.
I wear the suit with leggings instead of pants, and the coat as a sleeveless vest. I favour the peacekeeper skin on myself, because it looks nice with my hair. Because that’s important.
Get the Strigidae suit on Nexus Mods
INSTITUTE EXPEDITIONARY SUIT
The Institute Expeditionary Suit was designed to protect Institute scientists from the harshness of the wastes before they had synths to do their bidding.
If you install this with a fresh game, you see it on Kellogg while he is Kellogging right at the start, and on the scientists that accompany him. It’s a much better outfit than the dumpy plastic looking vanilla outfits the scientists normally wear.
The glass on the mask can be transparent, and, like everything else, has various colour options, including the coveted purple. I wear the mask and the gloves from this set with the Strigidae outfit pieces I mentioned above. I like the medic skin from this set.
Get the Institute Expeditionary suit on Nexus Mods
The Brotherhood Recon Uniform
OK. I hate the Brotherhood of Steel. My first BoS encounter was with Danse, and he’s incredibly rude. When I finally DID play the B(o)S storyline, I found out that not only was Dansey Pants a rude dude, but the Prydwen is actually a flying bag of dicks. On top of that, they look like they’re running around in peachy orange pajamas. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
What I do have time for though, is this mod. It’s beautiful and looting this stuff off BoS corpses actually makes me happy to see them, instead of recoiling with boredom. I like dressing my settlers in this stuff, because it looks comfy, but still sturdy.
Get the BoS Recon Uniform on Nexus Mods
2077
This obviously breaks lore, but get over it. This is too awesome for that to matter.
The decals on the back of the coat aren’t tied to the skin itself so you can mix and match, and the lighting on the collar and shoulders is also customizable. I use the headset from this with the IEX and Strigidae pieces.
TheKite’s Handmaiden
This is based on TheKite’s own character Cécile Rose de Ségur. The character is female, but the mod comes with male options too. AND Nick can wear it, which is good, because that ratty trench coat is getting old.
This can be crafted, or found, pretty early on in the game, and it’s fun to run around in. AND IT COMES IN PURPLE!!1!!1 Purple and lime green, so it looks a tad Joker-esque, but I don’t care, because MF Purple.
Get TheKite’s Handmaiden on Nexus Mods
Pre-War Cybernetics
Do you like power armor? Does endless mount/ unmount animation, ugly HUD, slow movement speed, constant need for fusion cores, and overall clunky stompiness keep you from using power armor entirely?
Fear not! Niero has a solution for you. All the power and armor of power armor, without any of the suckey parts
Almost any type of power armor available in vanilla is available in Pre-War Cybernetics. There’s no HUD. There’s no fusion core waste. No endless fricking animations. No sluggish movement speed. There are oodles of custom mods available for each piece and it comes in a bazillion colours, shown below in this chart. The colours come in Chrome versions too
Get Pre-War Cybernetics on Nexus Mods
Jetpack
The Jetpack goes nicely with the aforementioned Cybernetics and uses the same colour system and palette. The flames can be either red or blue. The jetpack can either help you run faster, or run faster and fly. There are fall damage reduction mods at the rate of 30% or 60% reduction.
I’m so used to having this strapped to me that when I start a new playthrough and don’t have it, I feel very disabled. I makes jumping easier. It makes falling safer. It makes building quicker! If there is one essential Niero mod, this is it.
Archimedes-II
Is there a pesky radroach you just don’t want to deal with, on a road a mile away? SMITE IT WITH THE FUCKING SUN. Well it, and everything in its vicinity.
This is a glorious and entertaining alternative to missiles and fat mans (fat men? What’s the plural of that thing anyway?) You pull the trigger, wait for the sun to target, and boom. Explosions. Fire. General mayhem. You should try to target a stationary-ish creature though, because it picks a point, waits a second, and then fires. And stay well well wellllll back, or you shall be smote as well. I’ve been told bears a functional similarity to a gun from New Vegas, which I have yet to complete.
I wonder if it will kill Preston. Get Archimedes-II on Nexus Mods
Break Action Laser
There’s a backstory to this gun that relates to Fallout 3 I believe, but I don’t remember all the details. You can get it pretty early on the game by bugging some gunners. They like to carry these around.
There are a bunch of different stocks, different beams, sights, and paint jobs. A fun gun that packs a more impressive punch than the little plasticky pew pew guns that are usually around.
