JSawyer Mod

“This is not official and it's not a patch. If it disintegrates your game, do a Kareem and skyhook the .esp into your Recycle Bin.”— Joshua Sawyer

JSawyer is a personal modification for Fallout: New Vegas created by project director Joshua Sawyer, intended for those willing to experience a more challenging game. It was first released on December 29, 2011.

Background

According to Sawyer, the mod consists mostly of changes he liked but was unsure if the Fallout 3 audience would like, and the team did not have time to "screw around" with such decisions.^[1] When asked about the purpose of creating JSawyer, Joshua Sawyer elaborated on the balance changes and bugs unable to be fixed in the 18-month development window for Fallout: New Vegas. In the same post, Joshua Sawyer also acknowledged JSawyer Ultimate, a mod that integrates the changes of JSawyer while also being compatible with a host of other popular mods.^[2]^[3] Change 5.1 was completed with the help of modder xporc.

Legacy

Several mod authors were inspired to make their own versions of JSawyer, which sometimes were as simple as adapting it for Tale of Two Wastelands, or adding more tweaks.

Derivatives

Name	Website	Released
JSawyer Ultimate	Nexus Mods	2016
SawyerBatty	Nexus Mods	2022
Vigor - A Vanilla JSawyer Fork	Nexus Mods	2023

Current Version

Change Logs

	For a transcript of the change logs, see Mod:JSawyer/Content.

V2 Changes Link (Archived) posted on January 8, 2012

“A little while back, I released a mod for Fallout: New Vegas. I made a few errors and omissions in the process. I think I've addressed the majority of them. Below is the list of new changes (vs. the initial release).”

V3 Changes Link (Archived) posted on January 30, 2012

“I had hoped to tackle some of the more difficult bugs for this version, but my lack of scripting ability proved to be troublesome. I will likely not be able to update the mod again before Ultimate Edition comes out, so unfortunately some of the issues like Chet's store refreshing/clearing the Courier's Stash items won't be addressed in time. I will likely make one more update after this, but because some of the bugs I'd like to address are more difficult to fix, it may be a while before that update is ready.”

V4 Changes Link (Archived) posted on May 15, 2012

“Yeah, I don't have a good excuse for why it took me this long to update the JSawyer mod. But the battle.net outage gave me a nice chunk of time to fix up a few things. Updating the mod should not conflict with your current save games, but what do I know?”

V5 Changes Link (Archived) posted on September 29, 2012

“I have been unable to load the mod in FNVEdit to adjust the Dehydration/Starvation/Sleep Deprivation values, but here is the small list of changes since last time.”

V5.1 Changes Link (Archived) posted on September 29, 2012

“A helpful modder going by the handle xporc graciously addressed some issues in my mod that I was having trouble resolving. After some back-and-forth to fix some display issues, JSawyer v5.1 is ready.”

References

↑ Joshua Sawyer: "'Are the changes in your mod changes you wanted to do but the team disagreed, or were they things you thought up after release?' They were things that I decided I liked but wasn't sure if the Fallout 3 audience would like. So, and I knew we didn't have time to like, screw around with that stuff. [laughter]. So, I just decided to let it go, and after the game launched, I was like 'hey!'"
Fallout: New Vegas 10th Anniversary Charity Stream (reference starts at 4:15:30)
↑ Was there a specific reason for you to make the Jsawyer mod for New Vegas or was it something you always had in mind? Do you have any opinions on the Jsawyer ultimate edition mod?
↑ Joshua Sawyer: "There were a variety of bugfixes and balance modifications I either didn’t have time to do or was unable to do because we ran out of time. F:NV’s overall balance also errs toward being quite easy across the board, in part because Fallout 3 is quite easy and I didn’t want to completely alienate the audience coming straight to F:NV from F3. Jsawyer pushes the game to be much more challenging without being intentionally punishing to the player. The pre-order items were something I didn’t want to make in the first place (I dislike almost all pre-order items in all games) and when they were bundled in the Ultimate edition, it made the beginning of the game incredibly easy, so I spread those items out across the Mojave. I didn’t know about the Jsawyer Ultimate mod but it looks good. I’m a developer, not a modder, so I’m used to working in a development environment and don’t think about the compatibility issues that modders have to be aware of."

Fallout: New Vegas Mods

[1] Joshua Sawyer: "'Are the changes in your mod changes you wanted to do but the team disagreed, or were they things you thought up after release?' They were things that I decided I liked but wasn't sure if the Fallout 3 audience would like. So, and I knew we didn't have time to like, screw around with that stuff. [laughter]. So, I just decided to let it go, and after the game launched, I was like 'hey!'"
Fallout: New Vegas 10th Anniversary Charity Stream (reference starts at 4:15:30)

[2] Was there a specific reason for you to make the Jsawyer mod for New Vegas or was it something you always had in mind? Do you have any opinions on the Jsawyer ultimate edition mod?

[3] Joshua Sawyer: "There were a variety of bugfixes and balance modifications I either didn’t have time to do or was unable to do because we ran out of time. F:NV’s overall balance also errs toward being quite easy across the board, in part because Fallout 3 is quite easy and I didn’t want to completely alienate the audience coming straight to F:NV from F3. Jsawyer pushes the game to be much more challenging without being intentionally punishing to the player. The pre-order items were something I didn’t want to make in the first place (I dislike almost all pre-order items in all games) and when they were bundled in the Ultimate edition, it made the beginning of the game incredibly easy, so I spread those items out across the Mojave. I didn’t know about the Jsawyer Ultimate mod but it looks good. I’m a developer, not a modder, so I’m used to working in a development environment and don’t think about the compatibility issues that modders have to be aware of."

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