When they’re not gathering alchemical ingredients, playing post-apocalyptic dress-up, or practising their mini-nuke touchdown throws, Fallout 4’s Sole Survivor can often be found fending off the many dangers of The Commonwealth.
Whether it’s pre-war Chinese soldiers lurking below the soil, swarms of ghouls infesting abandoned metro tunnels or imposing Brotherhood of Steel gunships, the sheer range of enemies inhabiting post-apocalyptia makes just staying alive a minor miracle.
If you’re a vault dweller who finds the constant threat of combat tiresome or lies awake at night hoping The Commonwealth’s friendly NPCs are safe and sound, a new mod might be worth adding to your load order.
Feel like The Commonwealth’s most iconic settlement could do with better protection?
The mod in question is called ‘Caravans and Guards’ and is the work of modder FrancoHaggis. Their previous work has switched up the wardrobes of the game’s raiders and, with some help from MetalMonsterFNV’s ‘Riot Armour’, made Diamond City’s guards look a bit more like New Vegas’ NCR Rangers.
This time, they’ve decided to revamp Fenway Park’s finest without evoking memories of the Mojave, ensuring that each of them will spawn wearing more combat-oriented armour mashups and be armed with a range of weapons more powerful than basic pipe rifles. A couple of defenders stationed in the most dangerous spots, such as the area directly outside of Diamond City’s entrance will also get a suit of T-51 power armour each.
If you’re wondering where all of this top-notch equipment came from, the mod provides an answer in the form of a new Quartermaster's Office located by the city’s entrance, inside which you can find a Quartermaster and Engineer to trade with.
FrancoHaggis has also switched up the gear of those guarding a couple of other Commonwealth communities, Goodneigbour and Covenant, as well as providing some extra protection to some of the trading caravans who wander the wastes.
For example, they’ve integrated the guards from DWooT’s ‘Trashcan Carla and Guards -- Caravan-Merchant -- CBBE-SHB’, which is no longer supported by the original modder and has open permissions, into their mod, giving these hardy mercenaries better hardware to help protect Carla during her travels.
Merchants themselves have also been toughened up, so think twice before you try to steal from the likes of Carla and Cricket.
Regardless of whether your Sole Survivor is now taking cover from a wrathful flurry of bullets resulting from some pilfered Cram, make sure to follow us for more updates on interesting mods like this one for Skyrim and Cyberpunk 2077. You can also check out our mods of the month for January 2023.