General modding questions/suggestions for mods I should get

[Pajeezy]

Let me preface this by saying; wow, amazing job to this modding community and website, I couldn't believe the treasure trove I'd stumbled upon when I found this place. I'm an avid gamer and have had Skyrim since the day it came out, and have been playing TES since Morrowind, and yet I've only just now truly discovered modding. I have no idea how I've been playing this/these game(s) without them. Also, I apologize, but this post will probably be pretty long.

 

So onto my inquiries. I spent the entire day yesterday researching and downloading mods from here to enhance Skyrim. I primarily acquired visual mods as I still want to fully explore the game before I change any big content (I'm starting over as well because of these mods). I do have a few mods that change gameplay though a bit, and have questions on those as well.

 

First off, I need to know if I'm missing any big/important visual mods to complement the ones I already have. I will say beforehand that I don't plan/care to use ENBs, as I don't want any fps drops and I don't care for the fantasy bloomshine they all have. Anyway, here's a list of the visual mods I currently have (in no particular order):

 

-101 HD Bugs

-No Spinning Death Animation

-The Dance of Death

-Visible Windows

-Improved NPC Clothing

-Birds and Flocks

-Enhanced Distant Terrain

-Moss Rocks

-W.A.T.E.R.

-Realistic Ragdolls and Force

-The Eyes of Beauty

-Enhanced Lights and FX (after testing a bit, chose this one over RLO)

-Ultimate Lighting Overhaul (to enhance ELFX etc)

-LIAT

-Splash of Rain

-Wet and Cold

-Super Realistic Ore Textures

-HiRes Legible Road Signs

-Radiant and Unique Potions and Poisons

-Book of Silence (all 3)

-Book Covers

-Enhanced Night Sky

-No More Blocky Faces

-Ruins Clutter Improved

-Skyrim Flora Overhaul

-Skyrim 2k Textures

-Ultimate HD Fire Effects (Looks nice, although has a little bug where a very thin black ring is around the fire source)

-Xenius Character Enhancement

-Climates of Tamriel

-Ethereal Elven Overhaul

-Quality World Map

-iHUD

-SkyUI

-Better Dynamic Snow

-Enhanced Blood Textures

-Footprints

-Realistic Smoke and Embers

-Static Mesh Improvement Mod

-Towns and Villages Enhanced (looking to get all of them, however only one or two are on the Nexus)

 

That was long, sorry. Those are all the key visual mods I have going right now. If there is anything missing, or conflicting, or something I should worry about with certain mods, please let me know.

 

Now, as far as my second question. As I said before, because of these mods, I've decided to just start over. I got to level 21 with a pure mage in Vanilla just recently, beat the main story and all that, and while I do enjoy the gameplay as a mage, it seems a bit lacking. So I stumbled on Apocalypse Spell Package and Balanced Magic. I read that these 2 mods in conjunction with the mod ASIS bring a really good, balanced and variable experience to the table for mages, and make spells viable end game as I also heard those are a bit weak for a pure mage. What are your thoughts on this? Will it ruin the game for me? And would I need other mods as well? I also downloaded Duel, ACE and Enhanced Enemy AI.

 

Third question. Dragon mods. Also part of the reason I want to start over and experience. Best ones? I downloaded Deadly Dragons, Dragon Combat Overhaul, Bellyaches New Dragon Species, and Enhanced Mighty Dragons. These 4 are supposedly compatible and add many nice, new, detailed dragons to the mesh. Anything else I'm missing to complement these?

 

LAST QUESTION. Crashing. I haven't done extensive playing yet, haven't started my new game yet, and I have a lot of mods downloaded. Should i expect any constant CTD? I have Skyrim SKSE and I have been using BOSS every time I activate a mod, and so far nothing is conflicting, everything is green lighted. However there are a few messages telling me about "dirty edits"? And to use something to clean them with. Idk what that is, haven't looked into it.

 

So that's it. Once again I apologize about the lengthiness of my post, I'm just really excited and avid about this "modding" thing and I want to make sure I cover and understand everything :P Thank you for any input you may have towards any of my concerns!

[fifteenspades]

REMEMBER skyrim has a 3.1gb memory cap. all those nice looking textures add up. so make sure you don't hit that cap or you will crash instantly and there is no way around it. ( also make sure your video card can even handle all of them ) so telling us what video card you have would be helpful

 

Don't uninstall mods in already modded games.

if you don't want a mod anymore revert back to a save that never had the mod in the first place. ( or you will get frequent crashes )

 

also use Duel/ enhanced enemy AI. not so much ACE bc i have too many scripts already. but ACE is still nice to use gives a more varied build you can have.

but it's really personal taste for combat mods, each one is different then the other.

 

no clue on the magic mods. vanilla mage is easy enough without the need for mods imo.

 

i also use all 4 of those dragon mods, and well imo it's all you need. the bellyaches dragons are quite tough. and with DCO good luck trying to get close to a dragon if you aren't paying attention to its takeoffs and lands/tail smacks otherwise you will go flying through the air and most likely die.

 

 

Just because you use BOSS and it shows all green lights. it doesn't mean the mods won't conflict. you need to clean the Official esm's with Tes5edit not the Skyrim.esm though

Look on youtube for tutorials on that. Gohper has a really nice step by step one for cleaning official stuff.

You won't know for sure if you have a stable skyrim meaning either no CTD or very rare. until you start playing for a bit, getting a nice stable skyrim will be so "fun"

[Pajeezy]

Thank you for the feedback. The 3.1gb memory cap scares me a little. The 2k Texture packs alone add up to like 3-4 gb o_O How do I know which mods affect this cap and what's the easiest way to make sure I don't hit it? Just keep checking in and loading up Skyrim and see if it insta-crashes?

 

If I want to test a mod, I can just save my game, make another save after that one and use the latter save to test out new mods i want to incorporate into my already-modded game, without hindering my ACTUAL former save, correct? It's okay if I ADD mods to a game, I just can't REMOVE mods and continue, as it would be crash-prone, yes?

 

Should I keep DCO disabled for now, then? And can I just activate it at a later time in the game?

 

And thanks about the info on BOSS, will research that now and watch his tutorial.

 

Also, I'm using a GTX 670, so running any mods won't be a problem.

[firemanaf]

The 3.1 memory cap I am pretty sure is the VRAM being used in game. Not the actual size of the download of the mod.

[fifteenspades]

1. easiest way is to download Skyrim Performance Monitor or some other program that can show you, the amount of VRAM you are using in game.

just watch it to see if you even get close to the gap. you should be fine for now i think, but still gotta be careful as there is no way around this 3.1 gb cap

 

2. yes thats how you do it.

 

3. i don't see a reason to keep it disabled, it makes combat fun and challenging. i would recommend 2-3 followers if you plan on fighting a bellyache though

 

4. Tes5edit tutorial* not boss. BOSS is very easy to use and at times you can ignore what it says. but usually if a mod doesn't need cleaning it will say so on the mod page.

and if it doesn't well, you could either just make a backup and clean it, or ask someone on forums.

 

5. yeh GTX 670 will eat skyrim over n over till it dies of obesity. only thing you have to worry about is that 3.1 vram cap if you plan on using even more textures.

[drbeavis]

Your probably missing the most important mod for graphics - ENB Series. Everything else is icing on the cake - warning - it will destroy your FPS

[tiggerdyret]

You won't hit the 3.5 gb limit with 2k textures. Vram his how much ram is used by the card at the moment. Not how big your data folder is :wink:

 

If you want to take the graphics to the limit with a fully tested list of mods. It's a guide to the best graphics mods and bug fixes etc. They have some minor gameplay mods, that enhances the game, but doesn't change the feel of it. For instance by making npcs flee from dragons instead of fighting them. Check out what mods they use or follow the whole step guide http://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.6

 

Just a personal tip. Use Wrye Bash instead of Nexus Mod Manager. You'll have much more control of which textures overrides which when you install multiple texture mods. You'll also be able to make a bashed patch, which makes your game much more stable.

 

Don't write of all ENBs of. There are many different styles to the ENBs and with that card you should be able to get a nice frame rate too. I use enhanced shaders & fx preview 4 with Climates of Tamriel and the saturation turned a bit down on my tv. Doesn't look like WoW :smile:

 

Get TES5Edit and learn how to make a merged patch together with the bashed patch. You won't need this until you have a lot of plugins (most texture mods don't have plugins, esp/esm)

 

Oh, and IMO LIAT is very immersion breaking. It's just a pile of npcs cluttered randomly into the taverns. I had trouble getting around in there and it didn't look realistic because the AI wasn't made to have that many together in a room.

Edited July 27, 2013 by tiggerdyret

[thenobody0]

The S.T.E.P. guide is excellent for beginning modders:
http://wiki.step-project.com/Main_Page

 

And when you get a bit more advanced:
http://wiki.step-project.com/User:Neovalen/Skyrim_Revisited_-_Legendary_Edition

 

It taught me most of what I know about modding. How to install them and how to resolve conflicts.

Edited July 27, 2013 by thenobody0

[Pajeezy]

Okay, I just recently got off of work and have done some more research on the subject. This is all way more complicated than I had anticipated. I have NMM, BOSS, just recently installed Wrye Bash, and TES5Edit.

 

If anyone could give me a reasonably simple step-by-step for these programs it'd be awesome. I'm not sure when to use TES5Edit, although I believe I know how, at least to clean dirty edits for mods and the main esps (update, dawnguard etc). Is it advisable to use NMM in conjunction with Wrye Bash? I like how NMM keeps mods updated and is simple to use, but Wrye does more for the mods and is cleaner in the end. And I need some help further understanding bashes and how they work. And lastly, how in the world do I know what mod should override other mods?? Does Wrye Bash figure that out/fix it for me? For instance, some texture mods (when installing) will say "Would you like to overwrite this file with this one?" I hear that it's best for certain ones to override others to have the best effect. But other than that I'm lost D:

 

Essentially, I understand for the most part how to work every part, but not how it all comes together or what it means. :/ I've looked at several different guides but I'd prefer a dumbed down version (if possible). Thanks anyone

[tiggerdyret]

You really don't need NMM, cause it's not always a good idea to update your mods on a current save. Info from the old version can be written into your save and make your game unstable over time. You should only update if their is a fix or feature you really really need. I think you can move either your NMM downloads or your wrye bash install folder to one or the other.

 

Search for guides on youtube for tes5edit gopher has a good one as some mentioned earlier. With regards to wrye bash i just installed it and every time there was something i didn't understand I checked the readme. It is pretty simple and you be up and running in no time.

 

Just start installing 5 mods and start playing the game. Keep a backup save of the stable game and run as long as you think you wouldn't mind a CTD. If you don't have a CTD install 5 more mods and run again. When you run into problems you just uninstall and start from the working save without those mods installed. If your file doesn't have a esp/esm file it will never be written into your save, so you don't have to worry about texture mods. You can install/uninstall them at any time without reverting to an earlier save. Just to make it clear you can install mods to a save, but not uninstall it. Start by installing the mods that changes most first.

 

I get the feeling that you like me want to install a ton of mods and have the complete experience, but you might end up modding for 50 hour and then find out that your game crashes after an hour of play. Enjoy the game and try to enjoy adding mods as you progress. If you don't wanna do that and still want a 100 mods. Bite the bullet and follow the STEP guide.