maxernst

Umm, have you ever heard of a face-saving lie? Exactly what concessions did the Dominion make other than agreeing not to attack the Empire any more? The Empire gave up territory (though the Dominion has struggled to make it their own), they changed their laws, they disbanded their secret service. They allow the Thalmor to violate their soverignty by pursuing Talos-worshippers in the empire. That sure doesn't sound like a stalemate to me.

One can be racist and still find alliances with other races to be politically useful. Nazi Germany signed a pact with Japan. In any event, Bretons are a human race, and Nord racism is mostly aimed at elves, Argonians and Khajit, not other human races.

"If anyone sneaks up on us, I'll smell them coming. Or I might not. We will see."

A mod that models seasonal change, with the weather, snow cover, vegetation, and daylight hours varying according to the time of year.

I’m not the first to remark on the immersion-breaking lack of seasonal change in Skyrim. Windhelm is permanently covered in snow, yet it has trees and farms, while Riften is locked in a perpetual fall. Ideally, I'd like to see a mod that would affect the frequency of rain and snow, the length of daylight hours and sun angle, snow cover, the color and presence of leaves on deciduous areas, and when different berries and herbs could be harvested. I think a mod which altered the weather and flora as the calendar date changed would be awesome and would really add to weather/sky mods like Climates of Tamriel and survival mods like Frostfall and Realistic Needs. Sadly, I have no modding skill. However, I do know something about the workings of climate, so I have done some work on what I think Skyrim’s climate should be like, in the hopes that someone else can make some use of them for modding purposes. What assumptions can we make about Skyrim’s climate from what we know? Firstly, we know there’s tundra on the islands offshore and widespread pack ice in the oceans. However, the bulk of Skyrim itself has coniferous forests, which implies that the summers are warm enough that the ground thaws deeply enough for tree root systems to take hold. In the southernmost regions of Skyrim, we see deciduous trees, so it seems reasonable to assume that these areas have climates comparable to mixed forest climate zones on earth. The obvious thing would be to use Scandinavia as an analog, but while Skyrim’s culture is clearly Nordic, the seas off Scandinavia are warmed by the Gulf Stream, so it’s not nearly as cold as Skyrim appears to be. High Rock most likely would have a climate more similar to Scandinavia. Instead, I chose to use analogs from eastern Canada which gives us a range of environments from tundra on the arctic islands, to a cold coastline with icebergs in the Labrador Sea, to boreal forests and mixed forests farther south. It lacks the really large mountains, but the colder alpine areas can be simulated by simply lowering the temperatures and making it snowier. Besides, the major communities are mostly in low-lying areas anyway. Below, I have summarized the climates of what I feel are reasonable analogs for each of the nine holds, plus ideas for the climate of the mountain areas and northern islands. The summaries list the average temperature of the warmest and coldest month in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, the frequency of rain, snow, and clear skies over the year as a whole, and the depth of snow in the winter time. Full details with month-by-month climate information for each of these sites can be obtained in an excel spreadsheet here: http://www.axifile.com/en/607B204546 DAWNSTAR Located on Skyrim's northern coast. Based on Nain on the northeast coast of Labrador, very near tree line. Coldest Month: -18.5C (-1.3F) Warmest Month: 10.7C (51.3F) Rain: 7.1% Snow: 8.3% Clear: 30.3% Winter Snow Depth: 104cm (41”) WINTERHOLD Similar position to Dawnstar, but because of its position on the plateau, it should be less affected by marine influence than Dawnstar. Based climate on Kuujuaq in northern Quebec, but made it wetter. Coldest Month: -24.3C (-11.7F) Warmest Month: 11.5C (52.7F) Rain: 5.0% Snow: 9.1% Clear: 30.3% Winter Snow Depth: 101cm (40”) SOLITUDE Western Skyrim seems to be warmer than the eastern areas, perhaps due to influence of warmer seas to the west. Based climate on Cartwright on the Labrador coast farther south than Nain. I made it drier than Cartwright because the mountain ridge to the north would shelter it. Coldest Month: -14.8C (5.4F) Warmest Month: 12.1C (53.8F) Rain: 6.8% Snow: 5.7% Clear: 35.9% Winter Snow Depth: 100cm (39”) MORTHAL Interior lowland location in northern Skyrim. Based climate on La Grande Riviere, Quebec near James Bay. Coldest Month: -23.2C (-9.8F) Warmest Month: 13.7C (56.7F) Rain: 7.7% Snow: 4.2% Clear: 35.9% Winter Snow Depth: 50cm (20”) WINDHELM Located near a bay in the colder eastern part of Skyrim. Based climate on Goose Bay, Labrador at the head of a bay slightly north of Cartwright. Coldest Month: -18.1C (-0.6F) Warmest Month: 15.4C (59.7F) Rain: 9.8% Snow: 8.2% Clear: 35.6% Winter Snow Depth: 82cm (32”) WHITERUN Located in a warmer interior valley in western Skryim. Based climate on Bagotville in the Saguenay region of Quebec. Coldest Month: -16.1C (3.0F) Warmest Month: 18.1C (64.6F) Rain: 12.1% Snow: 6.2% Clear: 40.2% Winter Snow Depth: 49cm (19”) MARKARTH Located in a mountainous region in southwestern Skyrim. Based climate on Sainte Germaine, Quebec in a highland area of southern Quebec. Coldest Month: -13.5C (7.7F) Warmest Month: 17.3C (63.1F) Rain: 15.4% Snow: 7.9% Clear: 36.1% Winter Snow Depth: 80cm (31”) FALKREITH Located in an interior lowland area of southern Skyrim. Based climate on Ottawa, Ontario. Coldest Month: -10.5C (13.1F) Warmest Month: 21.0C (69.8F) Rain: 12.3% Snow: 3.8% Clear: 44.5% Winter Snow Depth: 25cm (10”) RIFTEN Located on a lake in southeastern Skyrim. Based climate on Wiarton, Ontario on Georgian Bay. Coldest Month: -6.9C (19.6F) Warmest Month:18.6C (65.5F) Rain: 12.6% Snow: 8.4% Clear: 41.4% Winter Snow Depth: 29cm (11”) ALPINE TUNDRA AREAS Based climate on Schefferville, in eastern Quebec but made colder and wetter to simulate effect of greater elevation Coldest Month: -30.1C (-22.2F) Warmest Month: 6.4C (43.5F) Rain: 5.3% Snow: 10.3% Clear: 29.4% Winter Snow Depth: 106cm (42”) NORTHERN ISLAND AREAS Based climate on Clyde on Baffin Island. Coldest Month: - 29.6C (-21.3F) Warmest Month: 4.4C (39.9F) Rain: 0.8% Snow: 2.6% Clear: 31.9% Winter Snow Dpeth: 59cm (23”)

Yes, I'd like to see this, too. Though I think Skyrim is actually stuck in fall, not winter., it's just that the climate is so cold that many areas are snowed in for much of the year. It should be possible to do it since the game keeps track of the months. There is a "winter" preset for Climates of Tamriel which will give you winter everywhere, and a summer flora texture set somewhere. It would be nice to see winterhold bloom. I guess you could manually switch your mods in and out, but it would be to better to have something automatic. Also, we don't have spring--melting snow, and budding trees. A full overhaul would affect would affect what herbs are available at different times, roots year round, flowers only spring & summer, berries in summer & fall. It would make for an awesome fit with Frostfall and the realistic needs mods.

Is there a mod that changes the interface for choosing your perks? Figuring out what perks are currently available to you is just painfully slow in vanilla. What I'd really like is a simple list showing in white all the ones you can actual choose and in grey the ones you can't pick yet, and if you clicked on them you'd get a description of what the perk did and what its requirements are if you don't have them.

Thanks. I wonder if the patch number is truncated because it's too long in XP? The timestamp on my file matches the 1.9.32.0.8 so I guess I'll try the mod and see if it works.

I have steam set to update Skyrim automatically, but the version of the program I have is 1.9.32.0 not 1.9.32.0.8 . I only discovered this because the Nexus mod manager flagged it as incompatible with the Live Another Life mod. Is my Skyrim not updating for some reason or is the .8 a version that comes with one of the DLC's?