figured it out... for anyone having problems with ctd's when equipping modded armor, make sure your NiAlphaProperty comes after your BsLightingShader. For armor that doesn't crash the game but doesn't show up (makes your torso invisible), try highlighting BsDismemberSkinInstance, find partitions at the bottom of the block details and expand it twice, make sure the last entry (body part) is set to SBP 32 body. That was the trouble for me. Thank you Cherry for a great tutorial. happy modding everyone