Better Caravan
🟡 Updated this year⚠️ Install Order · 5 steps
Install in this order, then this mod last — most mods fail to load without their framework and dependencies in place.
Preview

🔍 Analysis
- 👍 0.4% endorsement rate
- 🏆 #19 of 441 Gameplay Effects and Changes mods in this game by downloads
📋 About This Mod
Description
Caravan is pretty clunky - this mod improves various aspects of the minigame to make it much more playable.
- Automatically skip invalid card positions during selection
- Disable selection of unusable cards
- Highlight completed caravans in bold, and dim incomplete ones
- Show resulting caravan values before a card is placed (optional in config)
- Color lower hand size in red when below 6 cards
- Play an animation clearing losing caravans when game is over
- Delay game-over screen until any key is pressed
- Option to display a description of selected face/joker cards at the bottom of the screen while playing
- Reduce controller thumbstick repeat key delay to 200ms (previously 250ms) and add DPAD support
- Remove keyboard/DPAD repeat key delay
- Enable keyboard inputs while a controller is connected
- Add mousewheel support for deck building
- Use right thumbstick or shift key for fast movement during deck building (skips animations)
- Use DPAD to skip deck modification anims
- Make the deck-building scrollbar more responsive
- Option to randomly add/remove/replace cards in the player deck when starting the minigame
- Highlight winning caravan rows in white (optional in config)
- Re-raise your selected card when cancelling placing a card
- Optional cheat to show the NPC's cards face up
- Fix cards temporarily displaying the wrong back texture
- Address a minor memory leak when NPCs evaluate their turn
- Prevent discarding empty tracks
- Pause the minigame while the console is open
Optional AI Fixes
- Correct the consideration of 4s and 5s when discarding face cards at the start (difficulty = 1 or 2)
- Improve evaluation of Jokers - consider value when played on an ACE, and matching suit when played on other cards (vanilla was the other way round)
- Prevent Jokers from double-counting the card they're placed on
- Stop AI completing the final caravan and losing the game if the player already has two winning caravans
- Stop AI placing cards that make their caravan value exceed 27
Optional AI Improvements (enabled by default)
- If NPCs have two winning caravans, they will assess whether they can make the third caravan valid for either player
-- They will place a Jack, Joker or King to bring the remaining caravan between 21-26
-- If the third caravan is tied with the player (and between 21-26) they will discard their own caravan to win the game
- Allow all NPCs to use face and joker cards if their deck contains them (same as setting the caravan difficulty to 3)
- Proritize making new caravans instead of getting closer to 26 when uncontested
- Fix queens never being played, and a
Better Caravan is an engine plugin that significantly improves the usability of the Caravan minigame in Fallout: New Vegas. It optionally fixes AI bugs to make opponents smarter. With over 5,300 endorsements and 1.2 million downloads, it's a popular quality-of-life mod for players who engage with the minigame.
✨ Key Features
📊 Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Huge community trust with 5,325 endorsements and 1.2M downloads.
- Directly tackles a notoriously clunky minigame, making it actually playable.
- Optional AI fix adds a bit of challenge for veterans.
⚠️ Cons
- Only affects the Caravan minigame—if you skip it, this mod does nothing for you.
- Engine plugin might conflict with other mods that touch the same systems.
For Fallout: New Vegas players who actually play Caravan and want it to be less frustrating. Also for completionists who want to beat every quest without rage-quitting. Skip if you never touch the minigame—this won't change anything else.
💡 Beginner Tips
- Since it's an engine plugin, use a mod manager like Vortex or FOMM to avoid manual file placement errors.
- If you use other gameplay mods, check load order—plugins like this often need to load after major overhauls.
- Test the AI fix on a new game or save before committing, as it changes opponent behavior.
📊 Mod Details
- Game
- New Vegas Mods
- Author
- lStewieAl
- Version
- 1.9
- Downloads
- 1,245,598
- Endorsements
- 5,325
- Category
- Gameplay Effects and Changes
- Created
- 5/3/2023
- Updated
- 7/4/2026
🧩 Commonly Used Together
Users add these mods to the same collections — a real compatibility signal, not an AI guess.
🔧 How to Install New Vegas Mods
Download from Nexus.
📖 Full step-by-step install guide for New Vegas →
Visit the official mod page for specific installation instructions for this mod.
🎮 Need cheat codes or console commands? Check ur gaming wiki for New Vegas commands, item IDs, and more.
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