Help with Mod Choices

[cfguy]

Hi all,

 

I'm sure this topic has been done to death, if there's a thread already on this let me know.

 

I'm a 360 gamer that played Skyrim plenty but want more (hard to beat steam for games), so have switched back to PC. Have an AMD A6-3410MX quad OC'd to 1.9ghz/2.8ghz and a Radeon 6750M, if that's any help. Entry level, I know, but I can run Hitman Absolution on relatively high graphics with low AA and it runs fine.

 

I have Hearthfire (was $2), Dragonborn and obviously Skyrim (no Dawnguard right now).

 

So: I'm brand new to this mod concept but it fascinated me - Skyrim is my favorite game ever (don't game much anymore), and want to keep the experience running. What I'm essentially looking to get out of modding is:

-Fixing exploits (i.e. easy sneaking, overkilling as an assassin when normal combat takes forever; broken smithing, custom made gear better than anything you'll ever find even at medium level)

-Realism (graphics textures [conservatively], lighting overhaul, possible sound overhaul, NPC mods/variety, etc)

-Increasing immersion realism (i.e. frostfall, more weapons/armor, combat mod, archery mod [i shoot longbows in real life so this is important - arrows having a trajectory as opposed to being a laser, finding arrows realistically/breaking/crafting arrows, hunter mod, weather mod, etc)

-*Lore-friendly is a must - I don't want a high-fantasy, bright looking world. It's supposed to be set in the ficticious north (likely similar to the landscape of areas of Scandinavia and Canada), so bright colored trees, etc are a no.

 

So much to go through and it's really overwhelming.

 

This is the mod list I've come up with so far, and still browsing. Basically, any suggestions to add to this would be appreciated, as well as letting me know if any of the mods are incompatible with each other or would possibly conflict, or are very GPU heavy and cause big FPS issues. I've looked at SkyRe and I'm not sure if it's worth it - heard good things but I'm not sure I want everything it brings.

 

 

Sorry for the long-winded post, but here it is. I'm really in the dark here so any help is appreciated.

 

I should mention too: I'm looking for a mod that extends the hit range of arrows (not travel distance, simply being able to hit something you can see) - suggestions?

 

To get:

realistic lighting overhaul

HD textures

wet and cold/snow mod

more dynamic injuries

UI mods (interface, disappearing HUD mod)

dukes patrick mod (does this improve AI?)

Project Optimisation

immersive armors/weapons

realistic weapons mod/weapon de-larpification mod (thinner swords/realism)

improved combat sounds for skyrim (compatible with sound overhaul?)

clanking armor mod

sound overhaul

Locational damage (compatible/necessary with combat mods?)

Deadly mutilation/crimson tide?

TK recoil and status

ctd and memory patch boost

skyrim unofficial patch

W.A.T.E.R mod

Skyrim distant detail

Realistic rocks and mountains

Skyrim flora overhaul/lush grass/lush trees (not sure if these make things "greener/more summer-like")

Get snowy

rain and snow clipping

civil war overhaul

Immersive patrols

Better bandits

Travelers/Adventurers, Mercenaries, various patrol mods (thieves, etc)

unofficial hearthfire/dragonborn patch

dragon combat overhaul

stealth skills rebalanced

high level enemies

Skyrim Medieval Economy (compatible with immersive armors? and clanking armor mod)? Or skyrim blacksmith and balance project

Realistic lighting overhaul

Hialgoboost GPU Upgrade

Essential NPCs

Hunterborn

Burn Freeze Shock effects

Stealth skills rebalanced

Immersive NPCs

POSSIBLE

Immersive creatures

Weapons and armor fixes remade

Skyrim enhanced shaders FX

Skyrim uncapper

Thanks in advance, your time is appreciated. I feel like I'm getting OCD about this.

Edited August 7, 2013 by cfguy

[sapience89]

Just a few recommendations based on some mods I use that might suit your taste that I don't see listed below.

 

-Climates of Tamriel : There is a winter edition available if you want to go full blown out lore and make all of Skyrim a snowy wonderland

-SkyUI : Inventory, menu, HUD, and favorites overhaul, a big must for most people

-Immersive HUD/ iHUD: Toggle HUD on/off + quick fade features

-Less Intrusive HUD II: Fully customize size, positioning, rotation of each individual HUD element

-Deadly Combat: or other combat overhauls to make melee combat more than just beating enemies over the head with your sword

-Dramatic Clouds (also Real Clouds is out, but personally I had visual issues with it regarding white outlines on trees and distant objects)

-ACE Combat Skills: Most balanced perk overhaul I've seen so far that doesn't break the game by any means and even comes with a BYOG (balance your own game) feature to let you customize numbers. Completely modular as well for each different skill tree. Creates noticible differences and perks to using different types of bows, weapons, and armors.

-Inconsequential NPCs : Addition of more NPCs in towns

-Footprints : Self explanatory

-Immersive Beds : Adds sleep animation to the player on using beds

-Proper Aiming : Fixes aiming in 3rd person

-Legionettes : Always bothered me that the Stormcloaks had women soldiers, while the Imperial legion was a sausagefest

-Enhanced Enemy AI: Self explanatory

-Run For Your Lives: NPCs actually flee indoors at the sight of a dragon attack instead of jumping in and trying to stab the dragons to death with their iron daggers

 

As far as arrows and how they behave with gravity, that's something that's actually edited through an .ini file. If you look at the Proper Aiming mod, it covers the changes to make recommended based on that mod, which I find works pretty well already. Might also want to look into a darker more moody looking ENB that suits your taste if you're up for it. I'd look for one that is performance friendly though, especially if you're looking to install some texture packs and so on.

Edited August 8, 2013 by sapience89

[Morgusified]

This is mostly what I use + a few other pretty cool mods.

 

For more armor / weapons I would suggest these:

Game of Thrones Armor Compilation

Immersive Weapons

Isilmeriel LOTR Weapons Collection

Bosmer Armor Pack

Omegared99 Armor Compilation

Cloaks of Skyrim

Bandolier - Bags and Pouches

For sound:

Sounds of Skyrim

Thundering Shouts

Some other mods I would recommend:

Better Hunting Prices

Unlimited Bookshelves

Skyrim Shadow Striping Fix

Beards

Brows

Run For Your Lives

Superior Lore-Friendly Hair

The Eyes of Beauty

Bards Lute

aMidianBorn Ebony/Glass Armor/Hide and Studded Hide/Orcish Armor/Steel Armor

Real Glaciers V2

Populated Prisons

Falskaar

Unofficial Skyrim Patch

RaceMenu

Static Mesh Improvement Mod

Realistic Teeth

Better Embers

Enhanced Blood Textures

Detailed Rugs

ENBoost

[cfguy]

Thanks guys, much appreciated. I'll scan through those mods Morgusified and see what works well. I'm having some trouble figuring which mods might conflict...

 

I'll probably throw the majority of those in there. Thanks!

Just a few recommendations based on some mods I use that might suit your taste that I don't see listed below.

 

-Climates of Tamriel : There is a winter edition available if you want to go full blown out lore and make all of Skyrim a snowy wonderland [Thanks, will add]

-SkyUI : Inventory, menu, HUD, and favorites overhaul, a big must for most people

-Immersive HUD/ iHUD: Toggle HUD on/off + quick fade features

-Less Intrusive HUD II: Fully customize size, positioning, rotation of each individual HUD element

-Deadly Combat: or other combat overhauls to make melee combat more than just beating enemies over the head with your sword [Any experience with Duke Patrick's mod? Looks very realistic and seems to fix enemy AI]

-Dramatic Clouds (also Real Clouds is out, but personally I had visual issues with it regarding white outlines on trees and distant objects)

-ACE Combat Skills: Most balanced perk overhaul I've seen so far that doesn't break the game by any means and even comes with a BYOG (balance your own game) feature to let you customize numbers. Completely modular as well for each different skill tree. Creates noticible differences and perks to using different types of bows, weapons, and armors. [any idea if this would work with the DP mod?]

-Inconsequential NPCs : Addition of more NPCs in towns [would this balance with immersive NPCs?]

-Footprints : Self explanatory

-Immersive Beds : Adds sleep animation to the player on using beds

-Proper Aiming : Fixes aiming in 3rd person

-Legionettes : Always bothered me that the Stormcloaks had women soldiers, while the Imperial legion was a sausagefest

-Enhanced Enemy AI: Self explanatory [any idea on conflictions with this one and other combat mods?]

-Run For Your Lives: NPCs actually flee indoors at the sight of a dragon attack instead of jumping in and trying to stab the dragons to death with their iron daggers

 

As far as arrows and how they behave with gravity, that's something that's actually edited through an .ini file. If you look at the Proper Aiming mod, it covers the changes to make recommended based on that mod, which I find works pretty well already. Might also want to look into a darker more moody looking ENB that suits your taste if you're up for it. I'd look for one that is performance friendly though, especially if you're looking to install some texture packs and so on. [Fantastic, thank you!]

Edited August 8, 2013 by cfguy

[lordmonkus]

"It's supposed to be set in the ficticious north (likely similar to the landscape of areas of Scandinavia and Canada), so bright colored trees, etc are a no."

 

We do have brightly coloured trees here in Canada just so you know ;)

 

Here's a mod I recommend to adjust game colours to your taste and increase graphic quality without using an ENB, Its SweetFX http://www.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/37846 3 choices of colour levels, normal, fantasy and grim.

[cfguy]

Especially out here on the west coast (Vancouver Island) :smile:. It's not that the trees aren't brightly colored, it's that the lighting in the winter/fall is crisper but at times a bit more bleak due to cloud cover, and there isn't much opportunity for brightly colored, more fragile blossoms to bloom in said seasons in places like the Yukon (been up there a few times). Certain areas of Skyrim being brighter (like the less snowy/more spring like areas...can't think of any at this particular moment but I've seen a few) I wouldn't mind, but some of the lighting mods make everything look/feel like summer/spring as opposed to the cold, cloudy north. Subtle but important for atmosphere IMO.

 

 

Thanks! How does it differ from Realistic Lighting Overhaul? Any experience with it?

 

 

Also, any idea about the mod compatibility I listed? And any idea of TK Dodge works with other combat mods?

Edited August 8, 2013 by cfguy

[lordmonkus]

The mods name is actually quite misleading. It isn't actually a lighting overhaul at all but sort of an ENB like graphic enhancer but without the frame rate hit of an ENB. It will work with any lighting mod out there so there is no compatibility issue whatsoever. I use Climates of Tamriel along with Enhanced Lights & EFX http://www.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27043 with the fantasy preset from ULO and it looks great for my tastes. You might prefer the standard or grim presets, there are some comparison screenshots on the mod page for ULO.

[TenderHooligan]

I haven't used all the mods you've listed but Flora Overhaul will cause a drop in fps on most machines, lush grass/tress will do the same to a lesser extent. I haven't used Distant Detail, but if it's anything like Enhanced Distant Terrain then that's another one. Same for HD textures. And Locational Damage is still pretty buggy and I'm avoiding it until it's more stable. And while I haven't used them together, I believe I read that Immersive Patrols conflicts with Civil War Overhaul

 

Don't use TK Dodge. Use Dodge Mod instead: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29258//?

 

Then there are the overhauls. I've used SkyRe for my last two play-throughs and I've enjoyed it a lot. Before then I was using ACE in conjunction with DUEL, Empowered Magic, Stealth Skills Rebalanced and ASIS which was also great. And of course there's Requiem which is all the rage right now that I was looking at using but decided against because I don't like all the changes it makes.. None of them are perfect and all have advantages and disadvantages so it's more a matter of finding what's right for you.

 

The most important piece of advice I can give you as a new mod user is to discover many of these mods for yourself by playing, and adding just one or a handful at a time. They're all great in their own ways but they're not for everybody or for every kind of player. And even if mods are compatible and can work together, they might still unbalance game play and make it too hard/easy. And understand that constantly adding/removing mods will bloat and/or corrupt your save eventually (and in the case of the big overhauls SkyRe and Requiem, do NOT install/uninstall except on a new save) so either make backups or understand that you might have to give up on your character at some point.

 

Anyway I haven't used all your mods, especially not in one save, but from what you've listed I know these work together:

RLO

HD textures

Wet and Cold

Get Snowy

SkyUI

iHUD

Immersive Armors/Weapons

More Dynamic Injuries

all the unofficial patches

Immersive Patrols

Dragon Combat Overhaul

Hunterborn

Immersive NPCs

Immersive Creatures

Skyrim Uncapper

 

and all that was with SkyRe (and probably another 60-70 mods).

 

One thing I haven't seen mentioned that I think is essential is a followers mod. I've used both Ultimate Follower Overhaul (UFO) and Amazing Follower Tweaks (AFT) and for the most part they're pretty similar (can set followers essential, check their skills, level them up, ups your max follower count to 16 and 5 respectively I think and a bunch of other stuff). AFT has a few extra features but I've had more bugs using it. But the UFO creator isn't supporting the mod anymore so I'll probably stick with AFT from here on out.

[lordmonkus]

I tried using UFO but it killed a save game of mine and caused constant crashes until I removed it and loaded a previous save, since then I switched to AFT without issues.

 

A thought I had about using a complete overhaul mod such as SkyRe or Requiem since it's not a good idea to drop those in on existing save games take a look at ERSO http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/26217/?. It's perfectly safe to drop in on an existing save game if that is something you want to do, just leave out the racial module and it's good to go and for a perk overhaul I use SPERG http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24445//?. SPERG is also a mod you can drop in on an existing save without problems. But if you are gonna be starting from scratch than those mods might not be of any consequence. I used them because I really didn't feel like starting the game over again.

[cfguy]

Thanks much guys!

 

Lordmonkus: Couple things

-ULO conflicts with AA, right? Does it do that on its own/wouldn't the game look worse?

-That looks great - does it do the same kind of things that Realistic Lighting Overhaul does, like remove light from areas with no light source, and change indoor light to reflect outdoor weather (snow, rain, sun)?

-Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check those out. I'll use AFT instead of UFO.

 

Tenderhooligan:

-Good to know! I've OC'd my CPU and can run Hitman: Absolution on high settings with some AA and tessellation. Should I avoid ENB and graphics mods to keep FPS up? I'll avoid them if not. Anything that's better than 360 is a bonus at this point for me.

-I'll avoid locational damage and probably opt for one of the other mods that include it, I.E deadly combat or Duke Patrick's.

 

 

Couple other questions:

1. What do you guys think of overhauls as opposed to making your own changes (via combat mods, perk overhauls, etc)? I'm not sure I want to go with Requiem or SkyRe as I'm not sure I like the idea of a game that doesn't feel like Skyrim and doesn't allow some other mods to be added in. Feels convenient but a little too constricting?

 

2. Any ideas how perk mods would affect things like ACE, DP's mod, etc? Can you manually disable aspects of them via mod console in game?

 

3. I can't remember which mod did this but I remember reading about a mod that re-did sneaking to make it more realistic, even factoring in the color of your clothes at night as to your visibility, and if you attacked someone and they survived, they basically would never stop looking for you. Any ideas?

Also, any ideas which mods overhaul perks to un-break them, such as smithing, enchanting, etc? Those trees were stupidly OP'd (I made a daedric single handed sword that could one hit sneak attack dragons [6x multiplier], after which I stopped playing).

 

4. Do any of the added quest mods like "Dawn of Whiterun", "Falskaar" and "Helgen Reborn" conflict with other major mods (i.e. lighting, climate of Tamriel, etc)?

 

 

Thanks a bunch guys, you're extremely helpful. I'd honestly not like to experiment and restart games too much hence my desire to try and compile a decent list first.