So, more notes on Fallout 4, probably the last for a bit because I won't be getting more mod stuff for a while (other than sim settlements, and the only think more boring than building settlements is reading a story about some other guy building settlements):
The anime character mod might have been a mistake. Not because I don't like being able to play as a cute anime chick, but because one of the known bugs is that it NPCs heads will sometimes get "bigger", but it doesn't say how big. This has caused some minor paranoia. I keep thinking Preston's head is bigger than it used to be, but even after resetting the mod it looks the same, so I don't know if the mod isn't working right, if it's mostly working right but not in this one case, or if I'm Preston is fine and I'm the one with head issues.
I had my first big fight with Better Locational Damage, clearing out the Corvega factory. I died twice clearing the outside, and maybe another eight or so times inside (in part because I kept forgetting to quicksave, so I had to restart a bunch of times). It's a much more tense experience, because making one mistake can easily get you killed. I forgot to secure a doorway that lead to another part of the plant while I was dealing with Jared, and two raiders came through and flanked me mid-fight. Another death was when I was going back to that doorway after the mine I'd left in it had gone off, and I assumed it was clear when it wasn't, more raiders had come through after the first one exploded.
My fears about it discouraging aggressive play proved unfounded, it's more that it discourages run and gun style combat. Pushing forward into a room is actually pretty effective, if you can hit your shots, because it's fairly easy to gun down several unaware targets before they can respond....if you have the right weapon. BLD doesn't feel like it will work well with a low fire rate unless you're an amazing shot. It's not that a single well placed shot is bad, exactly, but more that automatic weapons are so much better. Yes, I could take an extra half second and carefully like up a headshot...or I could just hipfire with my pipe machine pistol and spray rounds at their heads, denying them that extra half second to return fire. I feel like BLD maybe shouldn't have removed the damage penalty that automatic weapons incur in the base game, realistic effect or not.
And of course, this works both ways, so enemies with automatic weapons are very dangerous. Though so far not the most dangerous, that goes to anyone with a shotgun. Shotguns can stagger you, throwing off your aim and leaving you unable to return fire for a moment. And when BLD can be so lethal, being momentarily incapacitated can easily be fatal. They can also cause a bleed DoT effect if you enable that feature, in fact they're the best weapon for inflicting that. Both of those features make shotguns far more lethal in the hands of NPCs than in your hands, because they have more buddies to shoot you when you're staggered and it doesn't matter if they die of bleeding because they have numbers, while you have to break off and staunch the wound before it kills you.
I'm loving BLD, it makes fallout actually feel like you're fighting for your life in a harsh, unforgiving environment with the odds against you, where even some punk with a jury-rigged gun and a head full of psycho can easily kill you (whereas in vanilla I haven't considered raiders a threat since....about halfway through clearing springvale elementary the first time I played 3), but if you don't want that kind of experience I wouldn't recommend it.
I also had Pack Attack NPC tactics installed, which is supposed to make NPCs smarter and more capable. I didn't notice a ton of differences, but I might have just seen them at thier worst. A lot of them were clearly thinking something along the lines of "well, the last 3 guys to go through that doorway got exploded by mines, surely that horrible porcelain skinned mutant with the giant eyeballs is out mines by now".
I was not out of mines.