thestigma

I always use some sort of follower mod so I can't exactly remember how much control you have in vanilla. I think with no mods the best you can do is to trade items to your follower and they will automatically equip what they think is best to use (usually the weapon/armor with the highest stats if they have the skills for it). With a good follower mod though you typically have full control. There are 3 main ones: -EFF - extensible follower framework (I recommend due to stability and features) -UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul -AFT - Amazing Follower Tweaks I think all these mods have options to let you easily choose specifically what your followers wear and use. Check their descriptions. They share most of the important functions but they do some stuff differently to each other. Just don't expect to strip them down to more than their underwear - for that you will need some form of body-mod with nudity support (of which there are plenty), and if you want to get into the real hanky-panky stuff you might need to head to loverslab if the content has been deemed to raunchy for the Nexus... to each his own :) -Stigma

Generally - if you load 2 mods that change the same things in the game then the last one overwrites anything that conflicts. But of course, this means that the result can be that you have SOME of the changes of the first mod + all of the changes of the last mod - and this can have unintended consequences. For example if you install a mod that changes how all the vanilla swords and axes look... and then you install another mod that changes how all the vanilla axes look (again) Then you have vanilla swords from the first mod and axes from the second, and in this case there is probably no problem But there can easily be problems. Installing many mods that all make drastic changes to the layout of Riverwood for example can have ... chaotic results... In general, avoid using multiple mods that overlap unless you (a) use a compatibility patch meant to make the two work together (b) understand the implications of having them overlap In the case of possible comparability issues, always always read the mod page instructions thoroughly, and try to not mix too much unless you really need to, because the potential for bugs and other issues goes up fast. I strongly advice that you don't just load up overlapping mods when there aren't instructions on how to do so safely and "hope for the best". Not unless you extensively test it at the very least before you start playing. Removing mods mid-game can sometimes ruin your savegame. -Stigma

I'm not an experienced modder, so I can only give you the general gist - but here goes. if the mod is only a replacer of existing clothes or only adds more clothes (ie. doesn't add scripting or extra functionality) then the main issue you probably need to deal with is that special edition uses some other formats than original Skyrim in some case. Putting the clothes into the game is either a case of extremely basic editing or slight tweak to the original esp - maybe just changing some filename references or it might work without modification as I believe special edition doesn't make a ton of changes in this area. So if it is a simple mod then all you need to do is extract the files, reformat them correctly to whatever formats special edition uses (you will need some relevant software to do this), and then finally re-package them as a mod however those console systems expect them (I don't know any details here since I don't console myself, but should be easy to look up). Just make sure that you have permission to port it over if you didn't make it yourself... stealing content, even with the best of intentions, is not cool. I don't know if you can make a mod private or not, but if you just mark it as BETATESTING - MIGHT NOT WORK YET then surely that should prevent any premature complaints? :) -Stigma

It's silly to spend your time berating people for providing FREE and OPTIONAL mods that you just don't happen to like. If you don't like them - ignore them and don't install them. Jesus. It's optional - and there is even automatic filtering you can enable for anything gratuitous. This is human nature though. People love to be offended at what other people choose to do - even when it doesn't affect them in the slightest. Especially when it comes to anything remotely related to sex, perceived or actual. Just ignore the trolls. Nexus is fairly good about keeping the site free and open for everyone - and if you want the hardcore sex stuff then apparently there's another site dedicated to that sort of specialized material. I think loverslab is the main one currently. That's not what I'm trying to get out of my Skyrim experience personally so I don't know the details, but I'm sure you can find anything you need there that was deemed unsuitable for the Nexus. -Stigma

Usually then NMM or mod organizer reports an outdated mod it is because the author did not mark the file versions well. This is very common - so in short, you should trust yourself more than what NMM says. NMM will blindly trust whatever version number the filepackage had and compare it with the highest number and warn you whenever they don't match. For example, optional files often often don't get their version number updated becaue they haven't changed - so the author didn't bother reuploading. Generally the more seperate packages a given mod has the more frequently you get these warnings - it is the fault of the mod authors being sloppy, or not quite understanding the technicalities of how NMM checks the versions. Very frequently you are actually running the latest files but NMM will report it wrongly because they haven't been marked correctly. If in doubt - just go to the download page for the mod and check the version manually. Each package will have a version number somewhere on the right-hand side. Unless ALL packages you install have the latest version NMM will complain - but that doesn't necessarily mean that anything is wrong - and you should always follower the authors instructions over NMMs warnings. Although, if you KNOW that you had an old version and you are SURE you actually removed that in favor of a different version and it still displays wrong then that may be another issue than what I am assuming to be the case. in my own loadorder I have dozens of version warnings despite only using the latest versions of all mods I install so ... take those warnings with a grain of salt :smile: -Stigma PS: Dat loadorder man hahaha, smurfrape and lube and schlongs *ROFL*. I'm not judging, whatever floats your boat man. Just be sure that you actually intended to share that with everyone :smile:

No, mods are generally NOT compatible. There are exceptions, but even some simple texture/model replacements aren't compatible because SE uses some different file formats for some things. That said - most mods can be made compatible fairly easily if the mod author is still active and wants to do it - so expect popular active mods to be ported fairly quickly. The biggest issue with SE mods right now is: - There is no SKSE (Skyrim Script Extender) for SE yet. This needs a major rework to be compatible - and many advanced mods require this to run at all. It is expected to take a few months at least (no timeframe given yet) before SKSE comes to SE. Until then some mods can't be ported - including many "essential" ones. - There is no SkyUI for SE yet. SkyUI needs SKSE, so that's the first problem. Secondly it isn't being actively developed anymore, and the devs said they don't have plans to port it. Maybe someone else can fix this... but that is not clear yet. So why do you need SkyUI? Well firstly it is considered to be the be-all end-all UI for Skyrim, so there aren't many other good UI overhauls and SkyUI is considered essential for most players. Secondly the MCM (Mod Config Menu) is part of SkyUI and most mods these days heavily rely on this feature to work even though technically there are other ways to do this... Choose special edition if you want a significant performance boost and you don't use many mods or can live without the missing ones. Choose oriignal Skyrim (for now) if you want to have full access to all mods. Long story short: Ever assume that mods are automatically compatible without reading the description carefully. Some ARE, but many won't be, or only partially. -Stigma

Ok, let me set a few things straight. PERFORMANCE (in cities especially): You will never get good performance in certain areas of Skyrim - primarily city or large village areas. Once an area reaches a certain density of objects, model detail and shadows your performance will crash hard. A certain place in Marharth overlooking the mine from the stairs - and whiterun overlooking the big tree from the top of the dragonreach stairs - are classic examples of these terrible FPS drops. In short - these problems are engine limitations primarily and not a lack of hardware. Least of all a lack of GPU. A GTX 980 is actually quite overkill for Skyrim in general, and unless you run some very intensive filtering effects you will likely never be much limited in that area. while having really fast CPU and memory subsystems can make these game engine sinkholes a little less obvious by pure brute force - there is not much you can do to really avoid the problem. These areas will simply never run well on any hardware. The gameengine really wouldn't care if you quad-SLI'ed 1080s. Aside from mod-makers manually optimizing areas to run better (by reducing detail density or using occlusion culling in smart ways) the only real fix to this problem is the special edition. It can run as much as twice the FPS in many of these "known problem areas", and that should put you close to or above the 60FPS limit on most decent hardware. (see gopher's special edition performance review on youtube). Of course, until SKSE comes out for SE the mod selection will be limited, and this can take a few months. I'm sure you are aware. So right now you either have to live with some performance sinkholes primarily in cities - or live without a handful of essential mods. I'm choosing the former for now, although given enough time SE will inevitably be superior. Also, you say you opted to install JK cities. Just understand that JK (full version) adds so much extra detail that it is adding a lot of extra strain on top of the already bad problems that exist in some areas of some cities. Just be aware that you have chosen to add one of the mods that put the highest amount of extra strain on one of the already worst performing areas of the game. The resulting poor performance is inevitable. The problem comes from the gameengine not being able to handle the density of detail and objects. You are now adding even more detail and objects to those scenes. That's why JK full can drop you 10-15 FPS easily in some areas where performance was bad to begin with. You can't fix this (outside special edition) unless you run a less intensive version. Check out JK lite. It has half the performance detriment compared to vanilla and is functionally identical, just with slightly less clutter and fluff. Some alternative city mods are even lighter - but just don't expect any mod (or even vanilla) to run perfect everywhere. Even in vanilla, there are some places in cities (like those aforementioned whiterun stairs) that even the most powerful modern systems struggle to reach 60FPS on. It is not worth dropping all your mods and ENB effects to try to overcome this. It only happens in a few spesific areas. Just accept your framerate won't be perfect in some areas of cities or choose the special edition. If using the special edition then go nuts - it can probably handle even JK full with satisfactory speed. Note that 'm not saying JKs is bad (arguably it is one of the best city mods in terms of attention to detail detail). I'm just saying that the full version was not made with performance in mind. VRAM: VRAM usage is determined almost exclusively by textures. FPS and general performance has little or nothing to do with VRAM (unless you go over your limit). If you don't run texture packs you won't use your VRAM much (so you should use texture packs, because there is a low performance hit for a massive improvement in visuals). Stick primarily to 2K, but you can afford some 4K-2K mix packs too easily. 4K is usually just overkill though except for textures for extremely large objects. Usually can't see the difference even if you stick your nose right into the object... so use 4K textures sparingly even though you happen to have a lot of VRAM. So - your system not using it's VRAM much in your situation is perfectly normal... you haven't given it anything more to use that memory on... Finally, be aware that if you run windows 10 (or 8 also I think) you won't be able to use more than 4GB of your VRAM because of a stupid OS limitation with directX 9. It's not a real big issue though. 4GB is more than enough to work with. You can for the most part install every 2K texture you can find, and even add a handful of 4K and still typically run below the limit. if you MUST have more you need windows 7 (or special edition, which uses DX11). As I said, it's not worth fretting over though... I use win10 myself. I have yet to feel limited in this area. ENB, SKSE memory patch and stuff (your last post): ENB will (with correct settings) offload Skyrim's memory useage. Normally Skyrim can't use more than about 3.1GB memory, and without ENB that includes textures(!!). More than 3.1GB = crash... ENB fixes this by essentially moving the texture memory out of the game - and feeding the game the memory when it needs it (using a small buffer). This means that most of the 3.1GB can be used for actual game-stuff - and that is far more than you will ever need in practice (rarely goes above 2GB for me using ENB even with hundreds of mods and a large buffer allocation). So in short - use ENB - even if you don't want any effects activated. it will make the game far far more stable. It is almost mandatory for a heavily modded game. The memory patch for SKSE fixes some instability issues with memory allocation in general. Always use either this or the preloader option for a more stable game (and read their instructions well to see you apply them correctly) But - neither of these actually do anything at all to the problem you describe with low FPS. Just to reiterate - you can't fix that issue aside from smartly optimized mods - or the special edition. I advice against trying a lot of speculative fixes or ini "tweaks". They are often misunderstood by a lot of people and can hurt you more than they help or have unexpected issues down the road. They just can't solve the underlying main issue in this case. Sorry for rambling. Let me know if you need a clarification on anything else. -Stigma

Absolutely. Any large overhaul that does many things in the same mod you need to be especially attentive to compatability details. That's why I generally for these sorts of overhauls favor mods that are popular, have been around for a bit, and is still being updated in recent times (anything with updates in 2016 or late 2015 is typically a good sign). When they are still being maintained you are much less likely to run into unexpected compatability issues (given that you read the compatability notes) That's why ETAC is quite appealing. It is still active and being updated, and has a really good reputation for compatability options. At least with villages/cities mods you do have some manual control just from the mods all being restricted to distinct areas. As long as you don't run more than one overhaul mod pr area you shouldn't run into too massive issues. Still - stuff can crop up in unexpected places. ETAC has an issue with ELFX since it overhauls the inns interiors for example - leading to a messup if you use both - but you can just use the no-inns version of ETAC to remain compatible. Hopefully a full compatibility patch for that is in the works because the new inns are far more interresting than the almost-clones inns of vanilla :) -Stigma

Regarding compatibility I think it is worth keeping in mind that ETAC primarily changes smaller settlements and villages. JK does a lot of work on the larger cities that ETAC does not touch at all - and thus if you only select those JK that ETAC does not touch then it should be fine and you can get the best of both worlds if you just spend a feew minutes making sure you don't overlap locations. I think my initial plan so far is to use ETAC as my base - and then see what relevant part of JK I can add without hurting performance too much or running into spesific compatability issues with other essential mods. But I've only begun investigating so I don't know if this is the best plan or not :smile: I am in the same situation of choosing. I know I want to subtly expand a little to make cities feel a little more lively, but I haven't tested nearly enough yet. What I have seen of ETAC so far was pleasant though. It definitely feels like it just adds to the vanilla rather than totally overhauling stuff and it all feels natural. Riverwood now feels like a small village rather than a tiny outpost. A few more houses, a few more generic (but named) NPCs that mill about with clear roles but no dialogue or anything like that (basically they are there for background and ambience mostly) and a new herbalist shop. Nice and natural additions, but not going overboard and Riverwood still feels like Riverwood. What you should be aware of (and I think will affect my choice to a large degree) is performance degredation. All these mods that end up expanding cities will slow you down in areas that were already slow - and as far as I can tell JKs mods are very heavy. Very detailed, but slow... There is a performance version too though. ETAC seems overall less drastic. For me I can stand dropping down to 30-40 in a city with fighting not being an issue for the most part, but anything much lower would annoy me too much. JK full seems out of the question for me, but JK lite (and there is even a superlite) does seem like a plausible tradeoff since they are functionally the same but just reduce the number of clutter objects that end up completely killing your framerate. I would very much like to hear some opinions from people who have actually played with both for an extended amount of time. -Stigma EDIT: This might help a little - a fairly thorough rundown and comparison of these mods:

You should definitely check out better males - there are a few alternatives there. Personally I like favoredsoul's bodymesh and Geonox's faces (either the younger or classic depending on how pretty vs manly you want to aim for). You also have several levels of bodyhair to choose from - from buttersmooth to "Are you a werewolf or something?" :D I haven't completely settled for one yet, so if there are other good ones to check out I would like to know more suggestions - but all in all this one is a very good allrounder. Just be aware that when you replace body and face meshes like this you ill affect everyone by default, so if you make a babyface hero with skin like Legolas then the men of Skyrim will generally look a fair bit less grizzled (Geonox'es classic is much more neutral - original but better looking) There are ways to set unique body and face to your hero though. Either through a custom race, or there is mod that lets you swap around model/skin sets on the fly in-game too (almost treating bodies and skins like equipment). Can't recall the name right now but Im sure you can find it. -Stigma

A little more info would be good. What does the mod do specifically, and what does it NOT do. What should we expect? I realize you stated the gist of the mod, but it is hard to test thoroughly unless you have a fairly detailed description of what the intended behavior is. For example, should we expect those helmets to drop from all draugur? All that visually wear one? Are they supposed to scale? (and if so, based on charcter level, or enemy level) ect. What are the likely conflicts with other mods if any? Is there any aspect in particular you want testing help on, or is this just a a last general sweep for any remaining bugs you missed? -Stigma

Adding more difficulty to the game in general isn't really a solution. I'm not even really considering how powerful followers are. They are quite powerful, but that's a separate balance issue. I first and foremost want to make them not be an inexhaustible and instantly regenerating resource. Without some requirements, downsides or maintenance to them you end up largely forgetting about them instead of growing attached. It's a little like owning a dog that feeds and walks itself and isn't even bothered when you leave the house :( -Stigma

Yea, after having read up more about - including posts from ENBs author - it I think I have concluded that "real" AA that you do in hardware is just impossible while using ENB (or rather, ENB with all the coolest features enabled). ENB needs deferred rendering to do the best parts of it's magic, and apparently that just can't be done with hardware AA. So essentially you are stuck with AA types that are post-process based. That's a shame of course, but post-process AA isn't that bad, and at least it is light on performance. If I have to choose between fully featured ENB and hardware AA the choice is easy for me (ENB). Guess I just have to live with it :) -Stigma

Hey all, I've been searching for a while for a mod that can help me make followers seem a bit less "cheaty". I love using followers, but certain features (or lack thereof) in the vanilla game make the way they contribute to battle it feel so dumbed down in a console-game sort of way. What I am looking for: 1) - Something that makes followers stay down if they go down during a fight (unless healed obviously), instead of going down for 10 seconds and then regenerating to full HP and starting to swing again. I don't want them to die permanently, but I don't want them to be a total crutch for any situation gone bad just because they essentially can wear down any foe with time. - Something that reduces their natural regen rate significantly, at least down to my own characters base rate - if not even slower. I want to have to rely on potions and healing spells to get them prepared to fight more. In vanilla they have regen powers that put wolverine to shame - going from near death to full health in literally seconds. Totally immersion breaking - not to mention it trivializes healing. As a restoration mage you are lucky if you can even get to healing them before they have regenerated and it feels like an utterly pointless thing that you do purely to farm some extra restoration progression. Wolverine doesn't need no healer... 2) - Ideally some sort of system that penalizes followers from having gone to the "down" state. Some sort of stacking debuffs or effective health reduction so that if they have been beaten to a pulp several times then they need proper rest to be effective again - or something like that. Again, this is to prevent followers just being an infinitely renewable combat resource with no downsides that you can just send charging into battle and completely forget about. Basically a middleground alternative between "permadeath" and "immortal wolverine" modes. The idea is that they can get worn out from tough battles, and you either have to make an extra effort to protect them, or accept that you can't rely on them to take infinite beatings for you. A day (or maybe few days) of food and rest should restore them to full vigor. I am sure that something like this must already exist. This is Skyrim modding after all, and it seems like the needed changes would all be pretty simple things to make. Can someone point me in the right direction for something like this? -Stigma

Hey all, I am struggling to find out how to apply proper SMAA or similar to Skyrim while using ENB. The postprocess AA in ENB is nice for performance and all - but there are many things those sorts of AA can't fix. For example, half of the loading screen objects look terrible because some in-model dges are "jittering" during the zoom - completely breaking the illusion for me. I should have performance to spare on my GTX970 for some basic 2xMSAA at least, but HOW? It doesn't have to be MSAA specifically. Any proper AA that doesn't rely only on postprocess should be able to fix these sorts of problems, and I am very open to suggestions. -Stigma

yea the equipitem works fine it seems, so it should be easy to make a bat that in one shot can spawn a set of "farmer clothes" and equip that set on a new settler assuming you first select them in the console. That seems like it would cut down on a lot of the tedium of manally talking to all of them and organizing their inventories. -Stigma

Thanks - I will experiment :) -Stigma

Hey all, I am currently using the trick of dressing up my settlers for particular job to keep some semblance of organization - but I find that manually equipping them is a bit of a chore. Does there exist commands that would let you add items to an NPC and then a command to equip that item? I'd love it if I could make a bat file that could let me do everything all-in-one after selecting an NPC in console. Haven't seen such commands in the small lists of console commands I've seen so far - but it seems like something that would exist in the engire... so I hope that maybe some modders here will have run across something like this. Thanks for any help you can provide. (I should be able to make the bats myself if I know the correct commands) -Stigma

I acknowledge the need for the function in the scenario you describe. It's just different than what I originally replied to. Personally I think that workbenches should just be 100% shared inventories when a supply line is set up. Currently it just shares resources and "derived resources" from junk. Notably, not items - guns, armor, aid ect. Outside of some kind of hardcore realsim mod I don't see why you shouldn't have your personal stash availiable from all your settlements. Running back to Sanctuary just to save some item for longterm storage or to mod a weapon makes little sense. Doubly so for those of us that don't fasttravel - and manually relocating everything to settlements closer to the areas you are currently exploring would be incredibly tedious. Just make all workshops with supply-routes attached share all items I say... The local leader perk is also a bit weird. You absolutely NEED at least rank 1 (and thus 6 charisma, which not all builds have) to really build anything. Otherwise you need to do dozens of manual hauling runs to the point of extreme tedium for each settlement. Local leader should be some sort of bonus or convenience for making better settlements - not basically a requirement to access such a huge part of the game. Just my 2 cent. -Stigma

Its not silly at all. For instance, If I want to go out and build up a new base I know exactly what materials I need to do it. I should not have to dig though a list of 500 items to find, and then lug 20 desk fans, 100 ceramic coffee mugs, 20 biometric scanners, and 20 camera's to get copper ceramic gears electronics ect ect I need. If the workbench automatically broke down items for me. I could simply grab what I need in the exact quantity I need. This is what computers are for. To rid ourselves of menial needless tasks. That wasn't what the OP asked for thought - and not what I replied to. OP wanted the automatic scrapping to be as efficient as manual scrapping. It already is - so specifically modding that would be pointess. What you are describing is bulk scrapping - and sure, it would be nice to have as an option somewhere to scrap stuff until you have XXX steel or whatever. The scenario you describe is maybe a little bit niche - you probably want to set up a supply line before you start a lot of building - but if you don't get local leader AND still want to build settlements then I see that something like that could be useful to have. It's not based of the same need as OP was initially describing though. I'm not saying that modding the settlement tools for more options isn't needed. There is a LOT of room for improvement. I primarily wanted to correct a misconception. The primary point of complaint that the OP had is simply wrong, and a common misunderstanding that should be corrected so it doesn't spread. -Stigma

If you want to save some junk from getting scrapped - why not just have a separate chest where you put those items? Then they won't be scrapped automatically. That seems like it serves the same function - and requires that you move a lot less items around - assuming that you don't actually want to preserve most of your junk items... Your workbench already IS a "scrap this" bin. The only difference is that it scraps things on-demand as you run out of raw resources and need more. -Stigma

+1. When I get around to building, I pay attention to just how many units are currently available to decide just what and how many units I build. For example, I'm deciding, "Should I build wood walls or steel walls?" I check and see that I have only <30 units of steel in stock, so I go with wood. But what the game is NOT showing me is that I have Junk in stock that scraps down to +150 additional steel in the workbench INV. Also, if there is a supply route in place I know that the final raw resources -- Wood, Steel, Acid, etc. -- are shared. But what about Junk, Weapons, and Armor that can be scrapped down to raw resources? Shouldn't those be shared as well? As long as the junk is in the workshop locally (or linked via supply lines) it should take all your scrap into account when tallying the total amount of (for example) steel. When I build it tells me I have thousands of units of steel available - and I certainly don't have that much raw steel that isn't part of my junk. SImilarly - junk is shared in supply lines. Put in 100 aluminium cans in one workshop and you can build using that aluminum in a linked settlement. Essentially both of the things you mention already work like you want it to - at least to the best of my knowledge... EDIT To clarify - junk items aren't shared (you can't pull out those cans in the other settlements) but the resources in them are (you can use them to build something elsewhere). -Stigma

Taylib, what you've heard is simply wrong. it doesn't work like that. Manually scrapping stuff results in the exact same result as automatically scrapping it. Thus - making a mod that automatically does the thing that the game already does automatically is .... a very silly thing to ask for all things considered :) The confusion probably just started from the fact that sometimes the workshops inventory doesn't immediately update on-screen (someone forgot to program in a refresh somewhere). The extra resources are still there though, and if you try to use those resources they will be used. If you don't then they will show up in the workshop eventually whenever it next refreshes anyway - so basically don't worry about it. If you are in doubt then just test it yourself with a low amount of manageable items in your workshop, and be aware that the workshop UI may not update correctly (but you can test if you can build something that needed those materialys for example). -Stigma

Needs an overhaul to be sure - but a lot of it is down to how awkward the companion interactions are. What I find most missing above all is a dedicated button to "select" your follower. having to turn around to select them to tell them to move somewhere or attack someone makes it way to cumbersome to work in practice. Another oversimplification that got left over from having such a console-centric control scheme no doubt. -Stigma

There i tons of humor, but it is mostly in for the form of funny little setpieces (there is a runing gag with finding teddybears engaging in situational shenanningans - literally dozens I've seen so far, though they can be easy to miss if you just skim over the rooms). It's a little less in your face. I think it fits since it breaks immersion a little less. It is kind of more optional. Lots of other setpiece jokes aside from the teddys too. They usually tell little funny stories about what weird things people were doing right when the bombs dropped... -Stigma