evendel

I may have discovered a moderately tedious workaround that doesn't require my own ESP. I'll want to be sure I have my load order correct I suppose, but I think that I can build the armors I want from each mod and it will override the vanilla mesh with whichever armor I built in Bodyslide. Then, since I built the mesh for let's say Iron armor from Remodeled Armors and the mesh for Imperial Heavy armor from Keo's mod they won't conflict because I didn't try to build two different meshes. It makes sense in my head and what little I've tested in my game, but it sounds weird typing it. An untested example, I think I could build the Dwarven Armor from Keo's mod, and the boots and helmet from Girl's Heavy Armors, and then the gauntlets from Remodeled Armor and because I haven't tried to do multiple meshes of the same item it should all work. Whether or not it clips with each other is a different story of course. Am I just crazy or could this work?

Well it looks like I'll be doing some testing of things, then. I was encouraged to dig through the SSE Nexus after randomly stumbling on this https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/17843?tab=description and I think with a glance at Keo's work and some careful building of only the armors that are most appealing to me (rather than batch building everything) I'll get the best result. Again, thank you so much for your suggestions! ::EDIT:: So I'm wondering....as far as Bodyslide is concerned, if I can figure out how to pull the bodyslide files from these mods would that work as a replacer? As I'm trying to install them all via Vortex I'm realizing that they're all basically replacer-type mods and not exclusively Bodyslide files. So I'm guessing that once Vortex sorts out who gets loaded after whom I'll wind up only being able to see the files from the "top" mod on my load order. We'll see what happens I suppose.

I suppose I might be outta luck without diving deep into making my own armors...I'm somewhere between Nisetanaka's Bikini Armors style and Spice Gear. For example, I really like the Imperial Heavy, Blades, and Nordic Carved tops from Spice Gear, but I'd prefer more than a tiny bikini bottom or a mini-miniskirt on the bottom. Gimme knee high boots and an almost knee length armor skirt with some tassets! Or even just appropriately armored leather leggings with boots over top or something. On the other hand I kind of like the Daedric being basically a one piece with thigh highs. So I don't know...I guess I'll just tough it with vanilla for now. But thanks for the suggestions!

What does everyone use for CBBE as far as outfits? As far as I can tell while using Bodyslide the CBBE body comes with meshes that are basically fitted to the body itself. The most basic vanilla outfits seem ok, but it gets kinda horrifying if you look at the Dawnguard DLC stuff. So far the only full conversion I'm seeing on Nexus is https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/13274 from luquitacx and while it does look better there are open seams on some outfits. I haven't built those outfits and actually looked at them in game, but I can only assume that a hole in Bodyslide is going to look like a hole in game. Otherwise I'm left with two (?) skimpy/bikini style armor replacers and I wasn't really looking for that. I'll be honest, I'm fairly blown away by contrast with TBD and the apparently full conversion they bundled with their body. In Bodyslide there weren't angular boob plates for Dawnguard armors. So what does everyone use? Does everyone just download custom armors and ignore the NPC's that still have vanilla outfits?

Ok, here's what I've figured out if anyone is still looking. The first line I believe means you either "gather" or kill/loot chests until you find 30 units of the ingredients, or you can buy from shops...just acquire 30 units of fire, frost, and void salts, and 30 ectoplasm. The second line I'm willing to chalk up to the previous thought, they must be dumped down a well found at the location. The last two lines took me a little extra thought and digging, but I did figure it out...though it leads to a minor gripe I'll mention at the end. The "black hunter" made me think the author was referring to something along the Black Panther River, since it was shattered I thought it might be near the Mouth of the river. So I loaded up trusty ol' UESP's Oblivion Map and found...nothing. No game references at all in the nearby ruins and forts and dungeons. So I started scouting along the river to the north, the Silverfish river...thinking maybe that was the "scales of a skittish game" reference and I needed to find a hunter reference along that instead. Still no dice. Since I'm no good at hiding things, if you don't want the answer to the riddle, stop reading. I then followed the Black Panther River along, looking for anything that might help me. On one of the southern tributaries there is a dungeon called Shattered Scales Cave. I believe what the author was trying to achieve is calling fish "skittish game" like a hunter, not skittish game like something children would play. It's not a reference many Americans would get I don't think since unless you are yourself an angler or a hunter we don't tend to think of animals in terms of "game". So, deep inside the Shattered Scales Cave (the "skittish game"), which is along the Black Panther River (the "black hunter") you will find a coffer and a well that drops into darkness. I haven't tested this yet, but I assume if you drop the 30 units of each ingredient down the well then the coffer should generate the Staff of Magnus. So here's my minor gripe...I hate it when I find an awesome mod like this, something so well integrated with the world that it makes me think, that makes me want to see the new models, that makes me want to collect the cool retextures, is made by a person who doesn't speak English as their primary language. It just breaks the immersion for me. I will admit that while I've had some fun figuring out the few riddles I have so far, having the grammar feel so awkward throws me off. Don't get me wrong, I love this mod and would recommend it to ANYONE who wants a bit more variety in their loot, and even more to people who want a bit of a challenge in hunting new artifacts...I just wish someone else (because I'm also ridiculously lazy about some things) could go through and "update" the mod to make all the added text a bit more easily read.