Little while could be a long while for some mods and maybe never for others. I wouldn’t be surprised if some mod developers don’t go back and fix it if they had moved on to other projects. These mods will be years old and anything that uses the script extender will have advanced features to it so they’re not a 3 minute quest mod using only existing assets found in the game itself.

This kind of mod is always a DLL of some kind, and typically, they’ll have you install the DLL to a location that the script extender will load DLLs from automatically (but sometimes they instead use the same name as a Windows DLL and go in the same directory as the game’s executable, as when the game tries to load the Windows DLL, it’ll try ones in its own directory before System32 and similar folders, then as long as the mod DLL in turn loads the real DLL, everything will still work). When the DLL’s loading, it’ll either overwrite bits of memory corresponding to functions with its own code, or if it needs to replace the whole function, will swap out the first few instructions with instructions to jump to a mod function instead.

The thing is, modders are Bethesda’s most die-hard fans, and Bethesda games have some of the largest modding communities in the world. Many of these modding projects have taken an extraordinary amount of effort from an extraordinary amount of people. For them to not communicate and work with the community at all is a big slap in the face because modders have given people a reason to continue purchasing their games and keeping their business relevant.

Is Bethesda obligated to work with modders to try and help with backwards compatibility? Not legally, no. But their lack of effort is rightfully leaving a sour taste in many people’s mouths.

To your last point, I’m sure you didn’t mean it intentionally but that is a straw man argument; nobody is claiming that every single mod needs to be compatible with Bethesda’s updates. However, if Bethesda at the very least communicated and worked with the community even a little bit, they could make the task of updating mods substantially easier. Instead, they chose not to, and now countless of hours of work will be wasted because so many people will not find it worthwhile to update their mods to be compatible with the new version. It’s extremely unfortunate.

The game was complete a decade ago and modders are the ones that actually finish the game for them. Bethesda absolutely owes modders, specifically teams like the script extenders, some support and respect.

It wouldn’t be the first time, the SKSE team for Skyrim was in contact with Bethesda before Special Edition came out.

You have to disable automatic updates manually but it is possible.

Yup, if you use mods, it’s a good idea to set the game to update on launch through the game’s properties menu in its steam library listing.

Since a F4SE nodded game is going to launch through the script extender’s launcher, that keeps the game from updating automatically when starting a play session.

I also like to make a copy of my game folder and save it off in another drive so I have a backup.

I know it’s been possible to downgrade Skyrim after updates, but not through any official means, might be the same with FO4, not sure though.

FO4 has built in modding for weapons and armor. There are some great expansion mods that add mods too.

Modding is a hobby, and just like other hobbies, tinkering is part of the fun.

I feel like Bethesda built a neat mechanic into the engine, the in-game building, but then never did much with it. Yes, you can build a settlement, but the actual task is mostly pretty basic, not much integration or planning to it, and could be a bit grindy.The Sim Settlements 2 mod to which I assume you’re referring did a better job, though I still feel like one could do far more with player construction than has been done in any of:

• Vanilla Fallout 4: layout matters very little, building is mostly a sandbox for aesthetic fun, not much by way of layout decisions other than making some more expensive things harder for raiders to hit. Does have the “The Castle” fight, but that’s short and about it for a real fight. Kind of grindy. Can get aid from the Minutemen if a settlement is nearby with th flaregun mechanic, though that’s pretty minor and I never bothered. Get some settler-produced resources which don’t matter. Get a sleeping spot, which can matter in hardcore mode. Not Sim City or Caesar in 3D.

• Fallout 4 with minor mods: can remove more items in an area to get a cleaner look; some of these break precombines, which hurt engine performance. Can build anywhere, not just in settlements. Can break the restrictions imposed by vanilla Fallout 4 on number of items that can be built (which keep performance sane).

• Fallout 4 modded with Sim Settlements 2. Does a better – albeit still kinda sketchy from a story standpoint – job of incorporating building into the game, has a storyline and quests. Eliminates the grind aspect – you can just take a settlement and let the settlers do almost all the construction, and get much-more-elaborate reconstruction of the Wasteland then I’d manually do. Does some rebalancing so that the weight on the Local Leader perk to make settlements trade, a major QoL improvement, is basically free. Gives me more of a feeling of progress. Plays reasonably well with people doing manual construction alongside the computer-driven stuff. More-substantial automated production. The randomized stuff malign what shows up something of a surprise helps keep it a bit interesting. Makes the game feel a lot more active. Still doesn’t have a lot of gameplay around layout.

• Fallout 76: Player CAMPs are very important to the game, as they contain essential equipment, and defending them is important. Still not a lot to the layout in terms of gameplay. Some people (not me – I’m in the “floating platform” crowd) really enjoy doing realistic and aesthetic CAMPs, and it’s a way to help put a very limited form of player-driven content creation into a form where everyone can easily enjoy it. Player vending machines, scrapboxes, respec locations, and workbenches (to create scrapping locations for overloaded players) create a reason for other players to visit and see them. Extremely limited automated production of certain resources – if you want some very specific builds, like Nuka-Cola-based weaponry, automated production might be useful, but in general, it’s not worth your time.

  There are player Shelters as well, “underground” or otherwise off-the-main-map mini maps that players can own and build freely in; there are entered from various entrances created in a player CAMP. I think that this was intended to leverage a survival aspect of Fallout 76 that was originally intended to be a lot more important – radstorms, and needing to seek shelter. These are so infrequent and weak, though, that by the time one gets to Shelters, they’re essentially ignorable. Nothing in a Shelter can be attacked by raiders, but automated production does not work in a Shelter.

  With a subscription, there are placeable Tents that can be put on the map in places not one’s CAMP. These provide a resting, scrapbox, and scrapping location that can exist anywhere. Helpful QoL to stick near boss fight locations.

  Bethesda sells cosmetic items, if you like that sort of thing (which based on EA’s sales of items for The Sims, I assume some people very much do like). Not very much potential for modding here, due to it being a multiplayer game with the servers run by Bethesda, so unless Bethesda gets and decides to plunge a lot of money into it, vanilla Fallout 76 is probably about as much as there’s going to be.

• Starfield. Meaningful automated production system and resource-hunting system, with slightly more-interesting layout and defense. The problem here is that the only real gameplay reason to build bases is to…get lots of resources, which are only really useful to build large bases. It lets players who don’t like building skip that aspect of the game, but at least to me, made the building aspect feel kind of pointless and circular. We’ll see what happens with mods. The engine is good, and there’s potential for interesting things to happen, but if they don’t get created, well…

hah, yes it does. and good, glad to hear it ;)