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Returning to modding on PC. Need advice on general troubleshooting


1remaining

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So here's my story:

Roughly ten years ago I was able to play and mod Oblivion on a toaster laptop not made for gaming. I became familiar with Nexus Mods, NMM, xEdit; and was mostly successful modding and playing the game. I was delighted!

Next, after waiting a very long eight years, I was finally able to mod and play Skyrim SE/AE on the Xbox One S. I became familiar with Load Order arrangement on the Xbox, The Logical Load Order template, and the tyranny and endless frustration of mod limitations.

This went on until Bethesda's somewhat recent update, where they rebuilt Beth.net. Once that was complete, the Mods tab disappeared from my main menu. Since I no longer had access to Beth.net, this brought modding to a screeching halt, with me doing most of the screeching.

Fortunately, I was able to look up some fixes online, which enabled me to return the Mods tab (now "Creations") to my main menu. I then went about trying to rebuild my mod list from memory, but found that Beth.net would crash after about ten minutes. It kept on doing this no matter what I did, so I deleted Skyrim out of shear frustration.

Fortunately, I am blessed with good and generous friends, one of which gifted me with his old PC when he upgraded. It's a little better than a potato, so adequate for modding.

I got Skyrim SE/AE from Steam (the latest version with the four "freebies"), and pretty much set about downloading mods like a total fiend kid in a candy shop, for over a month. I think I have somewhere around 1200 mods, give or take. I would periodically launch the game through SKSE to make sure it would launch alright, and that I could get into the game.

I've learned the basics of using Vortex, Loot (maybe), and part of the current version of xEdit. I have a habit of reading mod pages before download (why it took over a month), and I like to do my own problem solving and troubleshooting when I can. I learned to do that while modding on the Xbox, because you pretty much have to.

So, I'm well aware that I did the opposite of what you're "supposed" to do, but I couldn't help it, dammit! I was just giddy being able to get all those mods! I also admit that often, when called upon by Vortex to assign rules to resolve conflicts, I sometimes had no idea which mod should win. There were a fair number of conflicts involving only cube maps, for instance.

So now, when I'm finally ready to stop modding and play the game, whenever I launch it, the main menu background comes up, but there's no menu or cursor. Just the 'Loading' circle in the bottom right, which spins forever...

Having just come from modding on Xbox, the first thing I wanted to check was Load Order, but LOOT seemed to have no idea what a 'proper' Load Order was supposed to look like. So, I started to investigate LOOT, and the more I learned, the more confused I became. I discovered that I couldn't put some mods in the order suggested by the mod author, because LOOT had rules against that. Guess those mods aren't going to work! Then I found out that I can't recreate the Logical Load Order I had spent so much time becoming familiar with, because LOOT doesn't work that way! In fact, LOOT doesn't even HAVE mod categories. It eschews those in favor of "groups", which are labeled completely arbitrarily and seem to have about as much to do with a good Load Order as a recipe for chicken salad.

I am at a loss. I've read all that I can find on the workings of LOOT, which mainly tells me to just leave it alone. Modding has a different landscape than it did ten years ago when I cut my teeth spending two weeks in xEdit trying to get two conflicting NPC overhauls to work together (Weee!!).

Right now, I feel I need all the help and advice I can get. I'm willing to do some learning and legwork, but I need to at least be pointed in the right direction. If you've read all this, I thank you for your consideration.

 

TL;DR: Returning to modding after a decade, need to learn current troubleshooting techniques.

Edited by 1remaining
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Do you have engine fixes. If so, is it installed correctly. Did you verify skse was installed correctly.

No, the LLO is not going to work with a pc modded game. The fitting category for a mod can still apply, but you will find you need other categories, and most likely have to create most of them as groups. LOOT groups are set up to create a 'proper' LO, it just doesn't look the same for an xbox. Just think of 'Groups' as 'Categories', but there maybe some more variables involved, if you find LOOT not doing what you want.  Your LLO category that comes near the top now may have to be last, as an example. Xedit can help you there. Here is a couple vids to get you going on creating LOOT groups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33jgisrH-VQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aYHcL0iE3k

Yes, as you said, that was not the best way to build your LO and 'just' seeing if it launches to game is nothing more of a test than a test for that specific action. I tested and added and tested and added, and thought all was just fine. Went to a city I hadn't been to and bam, ctd. Completely vanilla city too. After some very long hours of troubleshooting, come to find out is was probably one of the first two dozen I enabled. Think I was over 400 active plugins at the time. "Testing" is better if it is a touch more thorough, as I learned the hard way. And I was going to a city or town, indoors, outdoors, interact with npcs, etc every test. I 'thought' that was "good enough"......not!

Myself, I only made it to around 615 active plugins and found, I'll just say, limitations and foreseeable problems I myself did not like for building a large LO with vortex. You can read about our discussions concerning vortex and MO2 here https://forums.nexusmods.com/topic/13471766-what-are-the-advantages-of-vortex-over-mod-organizer-2-or-vice-versa/  Note also I figured my LO would finish at maybe 1000 plugins at most, and that would be with CR patches.

Even if you were to get into game, you'd have a very good chance of running into problems later. Possibly ones quite damaging to a play through (corrupted saves). At best, a portion of the mod's effects, you spent so much time to find, might not even make it into game. A modded game lives with overrides and conflicts, its just about making sure your getting what you want.

Now if you just went through and got a single mod for each area of the game (armor, weapon, city mod for each, one tree, one grass, etc, etc, then I am sure not much testing would be required, but I don't think there is like 1200 plus categories to the game. So, most likely, you have multiple mods overwriting a game category. One changing the game is an override, two or more changing the same area is a conflict. Sometimes you just don't get that high textured sweet roll......and sometimes you can get a ctd.

You potentially could have a real mess there, so good thing you said you did not mind doing the leg work.......you made it, lol. I know, I blame mod authors......if they made crap mods we wouldn't find so many we like! For now though, and if you don't want to like level 30 plus and find you cannot do X or get Y, and cannot back up because of corrupted saves, I'd curve the mod crave and focus on getting what you have 'completely working'. So roll up them sleeves and get ready for a trip down memory lane, because with that many mods, xedit is you best friend! Consider that you passed LOOT for more than a safe reference, oh, maybe a few hundred mods ago. With pc modding it isn't the plug and play of just making sure a mod is in the correct sequential category. like with the LLO, there's a bit more to it. Happy modding and welcome back 🙂

 

Edited by Indio21
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To follow up so you have more confirmation than from a nobody on the net, me, (and because I'm waiting on a download lol) start the following video at 3:30 and play to 3:37 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksp_yPq637s

GamerPoets is my first go-to on modding, and very well known in the community as one of them in the 'know'. He also does vids on modding tools (xedit) and various games, along with MMs. He is thorough, so just ignore the ARCHIVED stamped vids. If he knows anything is somewhat outdated, it gets stamped and moved. They ALL contain great relevant info still applicable. Although dated now, Gopher's series are another to reference. His vids are still used in the vortex tutorials even now.

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