Necrolesian

You might be right about TLM. I had forgotten about that mod, but I used to use it a long time ago. The readme says it implements a night eye effect when carrying a light source, so that might explain it.

That's a tricky issue, and actually TLD doesn't eliminate it. I still prefer to use TLD and its recommended lighting settings. (Di.still.ed Lights is another option but you'll still have that issue.) I'm pretty sure it should go away if you disable constant lighting in the .ini, but I don't like the way lighting looks with constant completely disabled, especially with MGE XE's per pixel lighting. But if you're not using any lighting overhaul and not using per pixel lighting (so your lighting is more vanilla), disabling constant lighting might be a good option. The tl;dr is that Morrowind lighting sucks and there's no way to fix it completely.

I don't know offhand what the filenames are for the vanilla splash screens, but you can always just remove the vanilla ones from the Splash directory so they won't appear. (I'd back them up first.)

Such a high value would give the player a death warrant (at least without a mod that changes the death warrant threshold).

Yes spellmaking and enchanting are different tabs. If you made it as a spell you wouldn't be able to find it when looking to add an enchantment.

Spellmaking tab or enchanting tab?

There's also Better Dialogue Font if you're not using it. It's not larger, just sharper.

I'm not very knowledgeable about this, but if you created the texture yourself maybe it's not compressed properly? The vanilla textures use DXT1 compression (actually different kinds of textures are compressed differently, like the main menu text which is DXT3). If your texture uses a different compression format it might not show up properly in-game. I had a similar issue with self-created textures, in my case main menu text which I compressed using (I think) DXT1, which was the wrong type of compression for them, and they didn't display properly until I fixed it. Your issue might be completely different though.

I definitely recommend avoiding MGSO. Morrowind Code Patch and MGE XE are the big ones as far as utilities, and Patch for Purists for bugfixes. Beyond that it's really just personal preference. IIRC MGSO uses Vurt's trees mods, which I also use for the most part.

I use the Polemos version of Wyre Mash. The Polemos version wasn't that big a leap for me because I was already used to the original Python version from an earlier playthrough. When I first started using Wyre Mash it took me an hour plus to read the readme, and it still took a while to get used to it, but now that I'm familiar with Wyre Mash I couldn't play Morrowind without it. I'd suggest getting the Polemos version and spending an hour or so with the readme, and then jump in. It has some advanced functions you probably won't use, but the basic functionality is pretty simple once you're familiar with it. The only problem is that a lot of mods are packaged poorly and the archive needs to be adjusted first to be installed in Wyre Mash. I also use mlox to help with load order management, tes3cmd for cleaning and multipatch (it can be integrated with Wyre Mash so you don't have to use command line), tes3view (aka xedit) to diagnose conflicts and load order problems, and tes3merge for Merged Objects.

That batch file is interesting. It looks (at least to my relatively non-technical eyes) like running the first batch file on all your mods, then running the multipatch batch file, would basically do the same thing the tes3cmd fixit command does. What's the advantage of the batch files over running the fixit command via Wyre Mash? I haven't experienced any problems with fixit so far, but I'm using a relatively short/simple load order without any of the huge new lands/overhauls like TR and Rebirth.

I'm looking for a good scroll texture (I mean the texture that shows when you're reading a scroll) that's large enough to be compatible with "Better Typography" from Morrowind Code Patch (which expands the text area of books and scrolls). In an earlier playthrough I used scroll #1 from Vurt's Hi-Res Menubook and Scroll Pack, which looks good, but the scroll area is way too small. Scroll #3 from that mod is large enough, but it's radically different, not like a scroll at all. The scroll texture from Arukinn's Better UI is almost large enough but not quite. And the one from Morrowind Enhanced Textures is obviously large enough but isn't as high quality as I'm looking for. Does anyone know of a good scroll texture, that looks like a scroll, and is large enough for Better Typography? I could try to make one myself but I'm really not skilled at graphics editing.

This probably isn't the cause of your problem, but there's a line in Morrowind.ini that can disable "replacer" mods, TryArchiveFirst. Default is 0, which means to use either the files in the .bsas or the loose data files, whichever have a later last modified date. If set to 1, Morrowind will only use the files in the .bsas and mods like texture replacers will be disabled. Now that I think of it I remember that the Steam version has an issue where the .bsas are incorrectly dated so they'll often take precedence over texture replacers. Morrowind Code Patch fixes that issue. I'm not familiar with Vortex though.

No that's not bad, you do want both. They fix different things. (MCP changes the code in the executable to make fixes not possible for plugins.)

I noticed that the beta version of UI Expansion has this feature. The beta version has a couple bugs though, the last time I tried it (not able to select items in inventory). It might be possible to disable everything else in the mod's MWSE config file though.

The plugin probably (but not necessarily) would work correctly in-game (and if it doesn't, updating the masters wouldn't fix the problem anyway). Updating masters just gets rid of that error. Basically the plugin contains data about the master files (morrowind.esm, tribunal.esm) that it depends on, including the name of the master and the filesize. If it was made with older versions of those masters, the filesize is different, so it throws the error. Updating masters just changes the part of the plugin that says what its master files are with the correct filesize of the current master files.

The spellmaking tab lists the spells themselves. You want to edit the spell effect. Click on the Gameplay menu, then Magic Effects.

I don't use that mod, but it sounds like it was created with an old version of Morrowind/Tribunal (before the most recent official patch), and so your master files have a different file size than what it expects. Updating the plugin's masters in Wyre Mash should fix the problem, or you can open it in the Construction Set and save it.

The sneak attack damage multipler is controlled by the GMST fCombatCriticalStrikeMult, which determines the multiplier for all weapon types. It might be possible to do what you're wanting (have a different multiplier for different weapon types) with scripts, but I'm not sure about that. But in terms of game settings they're all tied together.

That mesh replacer solves the problem. Thanks! I don't really know much about mesh issues. All I know how to do is change texture paths in nifskope when a mesh uses the wrong texture.

I'm having a minor but annoying problem I'm trying to troubleshoot. Every object that uses the meshes ex_common_plat_cent or ex_common_plat_end (for example, the bridge in Seyda Neen, or outside Caldera Mine) has one part of the mesh that's completely black in-game and doesn't show the texture it's supposed to. It's the top part of the planks underneath the bridge. The sides and bottoms of those planks don't have this issue, just the top. This screenshot shows what I mean: https://i.imgur.com/Q9OTVMN.jpg According to nifskope, that part of the mesh is supposed to use the texture tx_wood_siding. Other objects that use this texture (like various shacks) look just fine. Other meshes similar to the problem ones (for example various docks) are also fine. The only meshes I've noticed the problem with are the ones mentioned above. I can't figure out why I'm having this issue. I thought it might be MGE-XE related, so I tried toggling various MGE options (shaders, shadows, per pixel lighting, etc), with no effect. The source of this mesh in my game is the mod Mesh Fix, so I tried uninstalling that mod (and therefore using the vanilla mesh in the bsa), but the problem persists. Can anyone think of a reason why I'd be having this problem? It's actually a pretty minor issue. Most people probably wouldn't notice. But it bugs me, and now that I know about it I see it every time. Any help is appreciated!

Okay after yet further poking around, it's possible to basically do what I want after all. The skill gains can be changed to curses, allowing training to work based on the base value (and the player is almost guaranteed to never be subject to a damage skill effect unless a mod adds it). The attribute gains can be left as abilities, but a script similar to the one in Level Up Birthsign Remover can remove them on sleeping and readd them after, so base attributes can be raised to the cap. Phew.

Okay, I did some more investigating on this issue. That Vampire Curse mod solves the problem (allows me to raise skills and increase attributes on level up as though they were the unfortified values, rather than the fortified values), but it adds a new once a day spell for vampires to restore all attributes that I think is pretty unbalanced. The only reason Vampire Curse adds that new spell is to compensate for the fact that you can't fully restore a damaged attribute that's also being fortified. Morrowind Code Patch (mostly) fixes that problem, so I thought I could just edit that mod and remove the new spell and scripts that it adds so all it does is make the vampire abilities curses. But nope, that doesn't work. That MCP fix works when an attribute is under a constant effect fortify enchantment from equipment, for example, but it doesn't work when the source of the fortify effect is a curse. In that case, it's still not possible to fully restore the damaged attributes. Can anyone think of a way around this problem? Right now all I can think of is to use the original Vampire Curse mod with its unbalanced restore spell, or not use it and let the vampire boosts remain abilities (with the problem regarding raising skills/attributes described above). Grr!

Okay, never mind actually, I figured it out. There's also a condition in the dialogue entry for the death sentence greeting that had to be changed. It seems this condition is the main factor here. Maybe the iCrimeThreshold GMST serves as a backup value, combined with iCrimeThresholdMultiplier, to create some kind of absolute limit where the guards will attack on sight without even initiating dialogue first? Not sure. The threshold in vanilla Morrowind is 5000 (that's what the dialogue condition is set to), but iCrimeThreshold is set to 1000 in vanilla, and you don't get a death sentence at 1000 bounty. iCrimeThresholdMultiplier is set to 10.

I'm using a mod called Economy Adjuster by HotFusion (actually I'm using BTB's edit of version 1.1 of the mod but I can't find that one online anywhere now), specifically the "crime" module that increases the penalties for crimes. One of the changes the mod makes is to the death sentence threshold (iCrimeThreshold), setting it to 54,001. I've edited this plugin and changed this GMST to 150,000 instead, but for some reason this change is not actually effective in-game. The effective threshold is still exactly 54,001, just as it was set in the unedited plugin, even though I've changed it (and my edited plugin is last in the load order, so it shouldn't be overridden by anything). Does anyone have any idea why this is? (There's another GMST called iCrimeThresholdMultiplier, but I have no idea what it does, and EcoAdj Crime doesn't modify it.)