This mod is part of a series of mods that complement each other but are independent and can be used individually:
[ Equipment and Crafting Overhaul (ECO) ] -|- [ Legendary Effect Overhaul (LEO) ] -|- [ New Equipment Overhaul (NEO) ]

This mod can be considered the successor to my older mod Armor and Clothing Overhaul (ACO), a lightweight alternative to some of those heavy and feature-bloated equipment overhauls. But it differs from ACO in various aspects. Some of them are an improvement over ACO, while others are just features implemented in a different fashion.




The mod comes in several individual parts so you can pick and choose which features you want in your game. Every part of this mod is optional and conveniently selectable from a FOMOD installer package, to be installed with your preferred mod manager.

<<< NEW EQUIPMENT OVERHAUL (NEO) >>>

OPTIONAL! This one doesn't have a separate and unique name. It is the original portion of NEO. The mod is split into several plugins, one for each DLC.

< DETAILS >

• Make individual armour pieces invisible, e.g. to prevent clipping. This option can be found in the Paint slot.
• Several helmets have a functional headlamp, this includes the Combat Armor Helmet, Marine Armor Helmet, Medical Goggles and Tinker Headgear.
• Enable armour layering on vanilla items so you can use multiple pieces simultaneously and on top of each other. Generally this means you can now combine any "underarmor" type of armour (clothing), like dresses, costumes, overalls, etc. with any single element armour piece (leather, metal, combat, synth, etc.). Want to wear your favourite dress but don't want to abandon your defences? Want to wear masks, necklaces, glasses and other stuff simultaneously with helmets and other armour? Now you can.
• All vanilla clothing (under-armour) items got a ballistic weave slot to make them consistent with their alternatives. You can apply weaves to them once you've unlocked that ability from the Railroad quest line as usual.
• Nick Valentine is able to wear all sorts of vanilla clothing.
• All vanilla items make use of Instance Naming Rules (INNR) so more information about an item's features is directly translated into its name.
• New improved and extended INNR as optional file. This one is very similar to ECO's INNR but less extensive and only covers vanilla stuff.
  

<<< ARMOR PAINT EXTENDED (APE) >>>

OPTIONAL! Previously a separate mod it also perfectly fits NEO's theme since APE is highly compatible with everything. It works on its own.

< MAIN PLUGIN >

• 2 new Material options for Synth Armor: Highly Reflective Coating (better Energy Resistance) and Shadowed Material (Stealth bonus)
• New Paint options for Combat, Leather, Metal and Synth Armor: All the new options are available in the vanilla Paint slot - also used by the Creation Club paint - and reflect the colours/textures used by their material options so that you can choose the visuals independent of its stats
• Synth Armor materials (new and old) make use of the new colours: Highly Reflective Coating uses the metallic texture, Shadowed Material comes with the black/dark colour, Microcarbon and Nanofiliment Material get the (shiny) white colour, while the rest (Laminated and Resin Material) retain the vanilla/default colour.
• Both new Synth Armor material options are integrated into the Synth Armor mod collections so that NPCs have a chance to spawn with them applied.
• If you have either ECO Redux's or NEO's optional "Extended INNR" plugins installed, two additional naming rules (contain names for the two new Synth materials) will be injected into ECO's/NEO's INNR upon starting the game the first time after installing this mod.
  

< OPTIONAL BLACK SYNTH ARMOUR >

• All instances of the default/vanilla Synth Armor colour get replaced by the black/dark colour.
  

< OPTIONAL INNR FOR COMPLEX SORTER >

• Contains a modified ruleset order for users of Complex Item Sorter (CIS). Only necessary if you have either ECO Redux or NEO including one of their Extended INNRs installed and plan to make use of CIS.
• CIS puts its own category of tags in front of all the original rulesets and thus moves the original ones down by one. This tiny plugin accomodates for that and moves its injected rules down by one as well so that the additional rules sit in the correct spot again.
  

<<< ELI'S ARMOUR COMPENDIUM (EAC) - TWEAKS >>>

OPTIONAL! This was a separate mod as well. Since it basically is NEO but for Eli's Armour Compendium (EAC) instead of vanilla equipment this also perfectly fits this page. It runs independent of NEO as well.

< MAIN PLUGIN >

• All equipment pieces got the same treatment as vanilla ones with the mod NEO, meaning they all come with vanilla attachment points applied so that other mods can make use of them without having to override the armour base forms, also have vanilla clothing INNR applied which other mods can make use of as well, and last but not least allows Nick to wear all pieces.
• All items make use of proper biped body flags so that damage and resistances are distributed and calculated correctly. Now the clothing pieces actually count as underarmour which they didn't in the original.
• All pieces that used a custom attach point as their Material slot had that replaced by the vanilla Material attach point. Using a custom one has only downsides in this instance.
• All clothing items had their vanilla legendary attach point removed to bring them in line with their vanilla alternatives. The attach point didn't make those pieces available as legendary drops anyway and were only usable if you also have a legendary crafting  mod installed. If you want to use those items with your legendary crafting mod, like Legendary Effect Overhaul (LEO), then LEO comes with the option to add that attach point to all items. Equipment and Crafting Overhaul (ECO) - Redux has that feature as well.
• Replaced EAC's barebones custom INNR reference on three armour pieces with vanilla INNR. That way INNR replacers like the ones from ECO Redux and NEO apply to those three pieces as well.
• Fixed a couple minor inconsistencies.
  

< LEVELED ITEM PLUGINS >(mutually exclusive)

• Fixes bugs and inconsistencies with EAC's leveled item lists in the same vein as the mod Leveled Item Fixes (LIF) does. LIF isn't required but highly recommended to fix other problems with vanilla leveled item lists.
• Remove EAC's leveled item implementation entirely. This is for those of you who don't like to see the armour pieces spawn randomly and get rid of the conflict potential of overriding leveled item forms.
  

<<< MISC TWEAKS >>>

OPTIONAL! Everything in here works independent of the base NEO as well.

< CROSS ARMOUR INTEGRATION >(RETIRED)
Fully integrates both CROSS_Courser Strigidae and CROSS_InstituteExpeditionarySuit into the game. Coursers and Institute scientists will wear them in most cases. "Most" means it replaces them for all standard coursers (including X6-88) in the wasteland and a lot of scientists in the wasteland and the reactor.

< MORGAN'S SPACE SUIT - NEO STYLE >
Modifies Morgan's Space Suit (Creation Club) in the style of NEO. Can be used independent of NEO.

< SYNTH UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION >
Distributes Synth Uniforms across the Institute (Institute Lockers and Dressers) in a conflict-free way. Can be used independent of NEO. Two variants available: script-injected or injected via RobCo Patcher.




There's not a lot to it but for the totally new players out there I'm going to describe the basic modding setup steps here regardless:

• Download and install a modern mod manager. Nexus' own Vortex and Mod Organizer 2 are the most commonly used ones.
• Make the game use Archive Invalidation as explained in this article. Vortex mod manager does it automatically for you.
• Download this mod's main file (preferably via the MOD MANAGER DOWNLOAD button) from the FILES section and install/enable it from within the mod manager. The mod manager will read the FOMOD installer this mod comes in and presents you with some choices regarding the mod.
• Once done make sure the mod's plugins are enabled in your mod manager's plugin pane.
  

All included plugins are ESL-flagged ESP files. They can be sorted like any regular ESP plugin but are treated like an actual ESL plugin. Therefore they won't count towards your ESM/ESP plugin limit.

< NEO >
The main plugins override most vanilla Armour (ARMO) and Armour Addon (ARMA) forms. Therefore they'll conflict with anything that modifies those forms as well. The optional INNR plugin obviously overrides the vanilla INNR forms. Fortunately, mods that do modify them are rare and usually you wouldn't want to use them simultaneously anyway. If you're also running ECO, pick only one INNR plugin or none because when using both they'll conflict.
Parts of NEO are incompatible with the VR version of the game. More on that in the FAQ below.

< APE >
Compatible with everything. The only thing that could conflict is the part that makes NPCs sometimes spawn with the two new Synth Armor materials. But then you just won't see those two new materials by default, you can still switch manually to them. When it comes to the compatibility of the optional plugins contained in the installer refer to their descriptions in the installer.
The mod should be fully compatible with FO4 VR as I made sure that its older engine can load the plugin in its entirety. But some feedback from a VR user would be highly appreciated.

< EAC >
The Armour Tweaks plugin is incompatible with other mods that modify EAC's armour records: ARMA, ARMO and OMOD form types.
The Leveled Item Fixes plugin is incompatible with other mods that override the same vanilla leveled item records (LVLI form type) that EAC affects.
The Leveled Item Integration Removed plugin is incompatible with mods that replace EAC's original plugin as well.




Can I update the mod mid-playthrough?
Yes, updates in a running play-through are possible and recommended unless the changelog specifically says otherwise. So, for your own good, form a habit of reading Patch Notes / Change Logs before updating any mod. That saves you from a lot of trouble in the long term.

How do I update the mod?
The same way as any other mod. Your mod manager (usually Vortex or Mod Organizer 2) can update mods automatically. In addition to that make sure to read the changelog before you update. In some rare cases updates in an already running play-through should be done with caution. There is a warning in the changelog when that case applies.
If you're managing your mods manually then simply override the files of the previous version with the new ones but I won't provide any support in that case.

Where can I find patches and expansions for the mod?
At the top of this page click on the Requirements tab and under the "Mods requiring this file" section you can find all sorts of mod pages that might interest you.

Is it safe to uninstall the mod mid-playthrough?
The following part is entirely about mods that come with an engine plugin (ESM/ESP/ESL) and/or Papyrus scripts. You can safely uninstall mods that solely consist of textures, models, animations and the like.
Yes, it is safe if you revert back to a save file that existed before you installed this mod. The only other 100% safe method is to start a new playthrough. Other than that the engine doesn't support uninstalling mods mid-playthrough. That is why the game will show a warning when you try to load a save with a mod plugin missing that got baked into your save. Bethesda devs also made clear statements in that regard, that it is never safe to uninstall a mod mid-playthrough. Doing so regardless is considered bad practice. Installing a mod almost always modifies some things in your save and you can't revert that without going back to a state (save) before installing the mod in question. And there's nobody who can predict what will result from doing it anyway.
That's all I have to say in that regard. I won't provide a simple Yes or NO for that method. Make your decision based on the information provided or do your own research. It is your responsibility to deal with problems that may arise from uninstalling mods. I don't want to see any comments with users crying that something broke in their game and they lost hours of progress.

Is this compatible with the VR version of the game?
Unfortunately some parts of this mod are partially incompatible. ESLs (or ESL-flagged plugins in general) didn't support the FormID range 0 to 7FF when they were first introduced back in the day. Fallout 4 VR is based on an engine fork of that time and didn't get the updates the original version got since then. The fix for ESLs, that unlocked the FormID range to its full potential, 0 to FFF, was implemented way later, back in 2019 IIRC. This mod was created in the new engine version and uses the unlocked FormID range. FO4 VR can't read those which makes huge parts of the mod unusable.
However, you could use the previous iteration of ECO. That one fully supports the VR version of FO4.

Some features aren't working. Why don't you fix them?
At this point it's quite safe to say that everything included is working as intended because it has been in use for several years by now. It's way more likely that the problem you're experiencing is caused by something on your end, like a mod conflict. I can't fix your mod setup / load order. Learn to use FO4Edit and resolve conflicts between mods.

Will you apply the same changes to armour/clothing added in by other mods?
No, I'm not interested in modifying other armour/clothing mods as I don't use them and have no interest in interacting with them in any way.

Why do body parts sometimes disappear when I apply the Invisible Paint to an armour piece?
That's quite simple: Many equipment pieces hide body parts (torso, limbs, head features, etc.) to prevent clipping with the item's model. By also hiding the item's model (i.e. applying the Invisible Paint), you just hide the item's model. It won't magically bring back the "naked"/basic body parts, the item is still equipped and still hides those body features and with the Invisible Paint the item models is hidden as well, so...

I'm also using ECO but I can't decide between ECO's and NEO's INNR. What are the differences?
There's just one difference: ECO's INNR is way more extensive. It includes many additional rules based on ECO's Universal Equipment Modifications.

What's the difference between this mod's Inivisible Paint and ECO's Invisible Option?
Functionally there's no difference other them being featured in different attach points (slots). This one is only available on items that have the vanilla Paint slot while ECO's variant can be applied to everything.

Can this be used on top of AWKCR?
Using NEO on top of AWKCR is fine. It isn't ideal due to AWKCR making changes to many things it shouldn't and its performance impact on your game but both mods will work alongside each other as intended.
Usually, I recommend getting rid of AWKCR for your own sake. If you're interested in that option you can find all the required information in the following article:
How to get rid of AWKCR (and Armorsmith Extended)

Is it compatible with Armorsmith Extended, UCO or other vanilla armour overhauls?
All those mods shouldn't be paired with NEO. They modify the same records with the same goal. NEO is meant to be a lightweight alternative to those heavyweights of mods. So, only use one of them.
If you pair them regardless, they'll conflict with each other, cause trouble in game, parts of one mod unintentionally interacting with parts of another, and in the worst case your game could crash. If you absolutely want to run multiple of those mods simultaneously for some reason, you have to invest quite a bit of time creating an extensive patch.

• Enhanced Vanilla Armor and Clothing