Greetings, fellow GUN members.

Many great armors here, released especially by dragbody, require a handheld Pip-Boy replacer in order to avoid possible nasty looking armor clipping - or in the case of Fo4 Power Armors, not seeing the pip-boy at all. The choice here is between the Pip-Boy Readius or the Pip-Boy 2500, and a mod that removes the vanilla pip-boy is also strongly recommended. Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of bug reports in the comments under these respectable mods; it's usually connected to animation glitches, either with certain armors or weird weapon positioning or something else. The author of the 2500 version even released a separate wrist mounted version for people who are sick of many annoyances of the handheld version.

I'd simply like to ask, what was/is your experience with these handheld replacers? What kind of bugs did you encounter? Did you discover any workarounds for them? Would you say it's still worth it?

Your opinions will be appreaciated

I never had a problem with any of them, and will refuse to play the game without one. I just just can't stand the pip-boy 3000 and how it takes up the entire forearm. Such a fugly piece of technology.

Either the Readius or the 2500 are good choices. Personally for lore reasons I go with the 2500, as it was the pipboy from the first two games. The Readius is still a good mod that gets rid of that ugly thing taking up your arm, but to me I think it looks a little too 'modern' for Fallout.

@Chinpoko117 Thank you for your advice!

True, the 2500 version is very appealing to me, although this Readius retexture is amazing and is making me reconsider my choices: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/37250/?

For these replacers, you probably must use a mod that removes the vanilla pip-boy, based on the description of the 2500 version. Did you use Vivanto's remover or a different one?

I can't play the game without the Pipboy Readius and I've never had any issues

@VWgolfR1

That's a good retexture, there's another one for the Readius that I can't for the life of me find anymore that gave it a worn and Vegas theme to it.

Now as far as needing a pip-boy remover they shouldn't need one, either readius or the 2500 - I use this one https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/38844 - both are a matter of installing and activating the esp. When running the game a script runs in the background and equips the PC with the new pipboy. Not sure if a new save is required or not for this to work, but I think it might be.

Now the only other issue I can think of is if you play TTW is that Tranquility Lane tends to not play nice, especially if you run a custom race. If I recall correctly Fallout 3 had this issue too, but it's been awhile since I played FO3. TTW makes the game obsolete in my opinion.

@Lucianhector Good to hear, thank you for your input.

@Chinpoko117 Alright, I hope the whole procedure will go smoothly. The reason I'm asking about a pip-boy remover mod is because the 2500 author recommends it in order to avoid experiencing the twisted left wrist/forearm issue.

The 3500 readius could be a good replacer for the Pimp-Boy 3 billion .

I believe dragbody once posted a workaround fix for the Tranquility Lane issue. Not a problem for me, because I have several reasons for not using TTW, and I'm actually fine with the vanilla Pip-Boy look, but in this case I care much more for the awesome dragbody armors.

@VWgolfR1

I think I know what you're talking about now. The wrist/forearm animation is because that arm was never intended to be seen underneath the OG pipboy. It's noticeable in first-person most prominently especially if the outfit you have on doesn't have sleeves.

The 'Pipboy Remover' by vivanto sounds like the best bet if this occurs. I haven't used this mod myself personally. That particular issue I do remember having once a while ago but it went away, most likely when I was re-installing mods.

Having tried the two, I definitely lean more towards Pip-Boy 2500. I guess it was a personal experience, but for me, the Readius just felt a bit slow to pull up, and I can't say I was crazy about the sound ticks each time you highlighted over a spot in the world map. After a while..it just started to give me a headache. x_x As for retextures, I have always enjoyed Nuka Pipboy. I enjoyed the color choices as it were, but having since then enjoyed the Nuka Break videos, heh, more love and meaning for it.

@Chinpoko117 I think it really shouldn't be much of an issue to make everything work as intended. Thank you again for your feedback.


@Noblesse-
Thanks for sharing your experience. The 2500 version seems like the way to go, and the Nuka retexture looks very nice.

2500 is better in my opinion, as it fit in the game perfectly and I've never run into any problem. Only sometime that the texture showed up late and need a few second to load. But that's my pc's problem. Anyway I highly recommend pipboy 2500

@845386958 Thank you for your feedback!

With handheld replacers, I've nearly always had the problems with my flashlight, and also my gun being positioned on the left side of the screen. Two separate issues, but both small so I kinda have just learned to live with them because handheld is the way to go with lots of armor and clothes from mods. The flashlight problem is, whenever I turn on my flashlight, the handheld device will show up in my hand, which is usually extended holding a gun, so there is just this floating handheld on my screen. Then the left side gun position issue, is one where when I equip a new firearm and pull it out, it will be as if I am a left handed gun user for a second, and then after a delay my hands will move and go back to right hand. Both weird, I've had luck with temporary fixes and esps but never completely gone.

I also use the 2500, mainly as I dislike the bulky look of the original pip-boy, while I don't hate the design I prefer the sleeker variants.

Great info. I haven't ever really needed to use a hand held but if I go back to Fallout (3 or NV) I believe I will haveto use some of the armors available that requires use of a hand led pipboy.

This is one of the questions which I needed to ask... but never did lol

@KentuckyFT That's an interesting info about the flashlight; I just watched one of the videos featuring the 2500 and noticed an option somewhere in the menu for an ''Alternate flashlight fix''. I'll try to find a video of the whole thing in action to see if it's really as bad as it sounds from your report.
I also watched Gopher's video about it, and the only thing mentioned there was the movement of the PC's arm whenever you have your weapon equipped, since it looks like it equips the weapon again, then it switches to the Pip-boy.
Anyway, thanks for your input.

@rojok2 And it doesn't intervene with the look of your armor in third person

i have to say any handheld pipboy replacer, is better than the vanilla pipboy. due to the fact it
doesn't get in the way of certain armor's or clothing. especially in power armor where it leaves
your left arm completely exposed. also i'd recommend using the pda meshes and textures of the pda
mod from fallout 3 to be used alongside with the readius. just install the readius first then install fo3 pda
just dont use the esp file.

I have found that it has enhanced my gameplay. Honestly some armors look a lot better without a large wrist-mounted computer. It is good for immersion and it makes sense for some characters to not have a pipboy. Personally my NCR trooper character would not have the caps to buy very expensive thing like that, let alone be out of regs. Or if someone does a legion playthrough. The probability of some tribal conscript having one is pretty low.

Yeah, I always use a handheld pipboy to avoid having something bulky on my character's arm. However, the Pipboy light is now kinda buggy.

@psydeffex @stoobygacks @FafnirEtherion
Thank you very much for sharing your experience.

So far, from what I've gathered, the standard bugs are the pipboy floating in your left arm when having the pipboy light on and weapon equipped, weapon in your arms appearing on the left side of the screen, a minor bug I mentioned above from one of Gopher's videos, and you must not try to access the pip-boy before Doc Mitchell gives it to you, otherwise the script will royally screw it up and you'll have to start a new game.

Well, it could always be much worse. Flashlight NVSE would be a good alternative to the pipboy light, but it's notoriously buggy, and not worth it compared to these pipboys.

Looks like I'm playing the devil's advocate here, I prefer the pipboy 3000, especially with Omnis Hi-Res Pip-Boy 3000 retexture mod and a cracked screen mod like "Dirty Pipboy". I like my game to be as vanilla as possible and I like the idea of having a mini computer attached to you, basically like a smartwatch. I also think it's more lore friendly, the way how it tracks your health and radiation and it's lighting is also more logical. When I'm trying armor mods, my second option would be the readius and I *strongly* recommend you get the "Pipboy Readius workaround fixes" mod. it's the only reason I started using the readius oftenly as it fixes that delay between pressing tab: the player's hand appearing and then the readius appears. Just my two cents.