DiscoInferno

I've also been told that most, or perhaps only the coolest mod makers just put in the bugfixes from USLEEP into their mod since they're bugfixes that people should be happy with anyway so I guess moving on I should do that?

True true, I was worried if, to use your example, USLEEP had "added 'VendorItemWeapon' to Iron Mace" and I, not using USLEEP as a master, changed Iron Mace to Iron Mallet then USLEEP's keyword bugfix would be lost. Luckily that doesn't seem to be the case. The official update I don't mind as a master because you should be patched up with that at the bare minimum, I don't need to be that foolproof. Don't misread me, I'm greatful for the consern and tutoring, I'm letting you know I understand what you're telling me.

I was worried about the less visible changes to, like, keywords or values.

That's why I checked the changelog, as I saw the unofficial patch alters no items that I want to alter, but I couldn't search the whole thing even with ctrl+f. The risk I'm running is that there's something I'm overlooking. Though with a second look it seems that the only changes USLEEP makes are to the text, which is what I'm changing anyway. I guess it's safe to need only Skyrim.esm. Thank you for your help, though I'd still appreciate any extra input on this.

Hello Nexites, if that's a name for Nexus users... I had an idea for a mod I felt I could do myself rather than just wishing upon a star that it would somehow appear one day, but before I can really get started on it I have (at least) one question. My mod, to keep things a little under wraps, only alters item names. No form IDs, no level lists, no item stats or any of that. Just the names. So I'm wondering, should I add the official and unofficial patches as master files? I know not everyone uses the full unofficial patch, like those who don't have every DLC (I can't blame anyone for not wanting to play Dawnguard but that's a talk for another day) but it's a pretty common requirement. I've looked at the changelog of the Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Patch and while the changes it makes to the items my mod alters seem to all be text fixes I can;t be sure due to the sheer volume of changes on the list. I guess maybe looking through it with TES5Edit? I'm also unsure on how a bashed patch and its 'import names' function would interact with my mod, whether it would remove the need for any masters besides Skyrim or do something else. I know not everyone uses WryeBash either, some people mod very casually... The official patch itself doesn't seem to alter anything I want to change, but you can never be too sure with Bethesda's "top quality" bug fixing skills being memetic in the community. I could add both as Masters just to be sure, but I don't want to mess this up and I don't want to alienate anyone from enjoying my mod so any advice, input, comments, or "git gud"s would be appreciated. If worst comes to the worst then good old-fashioned DIY testing is an option, but I'd be a fool to ignore all the information I can get. Thank you for your time.