Beginners guide to modding

[gromulos]

10 years and 88,000 views and not one complaint. Thank you to each and every person who has used my guide even if they did not post anything. I am completely amazed at the support I have received from the community.

 

 

 

THANK YOU VERY MUCH to Dubiousintent for monitoring my guide threads while i was gone.

 

If you use this information all I ask in return is a simple thank you post I can usually be found in the chat room on a daily basis

 

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* IF YOU ARE USING THIS GUIDE FOR SKYRIM SPECIAL EDITION THEN YOU MUST USE THESE FILES INSTEAD OF THE ONES LISTED BELOW

* LOOT for Skyrim Special Edition - https://www.nexusmods.com/site/mods/439/?tab=posts&BH=1

* WRYEBASH FOR SKYRIM SPECIAL EDITION - http://www.nexusmods...ion/mods/6837/?

* TESEDIT FOR SKYRIM SPECIAL EDITION - http://www.nexusmods...tion/mods/164/?

*

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1-24-17 - I have used the info in this guide to set up and test my own load order with SKYRIM SPECIAL EDITION and I am glad to report too all of you that this guide WILL work for Skyrim Special Edition

 

The original Skyrim files you will need are in my Siggy, SSE files are above

 

READ! Read the description pages for each mod. Read the install instructions for each mod or utility. Read the Skyrim owners manual. No one was ever hurt by just reading.

 

Flipping / somersaulting prison cart at beginning FIX - I used every method I could to fix this issue and this mod is the ONLY one that worked with out any problems - Yes I purposely bugged out my game to find a fix for this lol - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34

12/10/2022 - Found a new fix for the somersaulting cart at the beginning - Limit your FPS to 60 in your Geforce or Nvidia game panel, also try turning Vsync on

 

 

WINDOWS 10 USERS - I "HIGHLY" suggest using this to bypass the problem of crashing or lockups and having to restart your computer - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/23188 - I tried it with Fallout New Vegas and it works, I love it!

 

BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE WITH THIS GUIDE GO INTO STEAM AND TURN OFF CLOUD. WHEN YOU EDIT THE INI'S IF CLOUD IS STILL ENABLED IT WILL GO BACK BEHIND YOU AND RESTORE THOSE EDITED INI'S

 

while this was primarily made for Skyrim, it also works for Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas

 

This guide will NOT work for any unofficial version of Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, or Fallout 3.

 

1) You need to run LOOT, Wrye Bash and TES5Edit, in that order.
Loot is not 100% and if that is all you're using you're going to have many problems as you progress through your play through, BOSS is no longer being supported and thus is out of date with newer mods. With many mods loaded, you should be using 2 other programs, Wrye Bash and TES5Edit. Sort the plugins with loot then click apply.

 

LOOT = load order
Wrye Bash = verification of load order and primary and secondary file load
TES5Edit = verification of primary and secondary file load

 

2) Wrye Bash 306-beta - Standalone Executable { Can be found here: https://github.com/wrye-bash/wrye-bash/releases } ( Do NOT use version 307, there is a bug or glitch in it where if you are using A Quality World Map or NACMIM ( Not Another Colored Map Icon Mod ) when you build the bashed patch it will break the map.swf in game, making your map completely unusable )) Example below:

 

 

 

Now, on to how to use Wrye Bash properly

 

2.1) When you run Wrye Bash if any checkmarks are not green, those mods are causing problems in your game, you make them turn green by dragging them up or down in your load order in wrye bash till they do turn green.

 

2.2) You HAVE to have a bashed patch file, once again Wrye Bash is your friend because it will automatically make you a bashed patch file when it loads your mods. A bashed patch file makes all your weapon and armor and other mods play nice together, it also keeps track of leveled lists in the game and makes them work better together also.

 

2.3) One other thing, make sure you enable ( check mark ) the bashed patch Wrye Bash makes, then right click it and choose rebuild patch as the one Wrye Bash makes is empty, which should always be last in your load order unless you're using an ENB, SUM, ASIS, or the Reproccer.

 

2.4) Make sure you go through both lists on the left and right panes of the window and make sure each entry that has a listing also has a check mark for the box next to it. Rebuilding the bashed patch is not going to help you if EVERYTHING is not included.

2.5) Concerning what the red, orange, and green check marks mean in Wrye Bash.

A) Red means a missing master file - basically a guaranteed CTD on startup.

B) Orange means that some ESP has requested its master files in an order that is different to the the order that you currently have them in. Orange mods are arguably more dangerous, because you won't necessarily get an immediate CTD every time, so you may be lulled into a false sense of security, whereas in reality you have an unstable load order.
Clicking on the orange/red mods will show you what masters they have, and what order they want them in. From here on in, it becomes like a puzzle: you need to manually drag and drop the various masters in your load order until their order is harmonious ( IE:. you've managed to provide the desired order of master files for every single ESP in your list simultaneously ) and all of your oranges have disappeared.

C) Green means you are good to go for that mod

D) If it's not possible to eliminate all orange mods, you may need to do one of the following:

 

• Manually download and manually install the mod - sometimes they are corrupted, this has worked for other people in the past that I have helped one-on-one
• Ditch one or two mods / patches - last resort
• Sort the master files for the orange mod in TES5Edit - see appendix 1

Here is a fix for anyone who is having a problem getting Wrye to run on start-up, Original Author credited:

 

In case someone else is looking for a possible fix, I had success with a similar error. After snuffling around the dark corners, I found where Skyrim's load order is kept. Go to C:/users/...../AppData/Local/Skyrim and delete the following files:

loadorder.txt
loadorder.txt.bak
plugins.txt
plugins.txt.bak

Then restart WryeBash.

BE WARNED: This is a last resort that will deactivate ALL your current mods and completely WRECK your load order, which you might have to sort and rebuild manually.

But it still might be better than gutting your whole build while WryeBash repeatedly refuses to work despite multiple uninstalls and installs, while you gnash your teeth and bang your head against the wall until one or the other breaks.

Edited November 18 by randperry

Appendix 1 -

open WRYE
find an orange mod

when tes5 opens and lists all your mods, right click the window
load in Tes5Edit only that mod and tes5 will load the rest ( best to do one at a time )
then right click the orange mod and pick sort masters
then close and save

 

The first 9 files should ALWAYS be in this order, no exceptions.

 

Also, in my personal opinion the Skyrim.esm & Update.esm should NEVER be cleaned no matter what LOOT or any other source says. You have been warned.

 

 

NOTE: If you are using the Unofficial Legendary Patch then the order would be as follows:

 

1) Skyrim.esm

2) Update.esm

3) Dawnguard.esm

4) Hearthfires.esm

5) Dragonborn.esm

6) Legendary patch

 

DO NOT USE A MERGED PATCH, USE A BASHED PATCH INSTEAD

 

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WARNING - As of 8-11-2017

 

From alt3rn1ty - author of the Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide

 

Wrye Bashes Bashed Patch can import a lot of records for the old Oblivion game, but for newer games like Fallout the patchers all need to recognise the newer games records to be able to increase it capability .. But they need to be developed first (Wrye Bash for newer games is a work in progress) - Because of this people are impatient to get a solution to importing more record types so falsely believe using xEdits Merged Patch aswell as a Bashed Patch solves the situation : It does not, if anything it makes things worse and random.

 

AND

 

Sharlikran - contributor to Wrye Bash

Gromulous aside from the quote from Alt3rn1ty, you might also want to mention what I said in my other post abut how Elminster originally made it for FO3 and FNV because there was no Wrye Flash for those games until Valda released his versions. The other thing that makes what Alt3rn1ty mentioned correct is because they don't patch all the records. Wrye Bash (with the proper record definitions and patchers) can patch all the records that make sense to patch. There are a few exceptions that you would never touch like the NavMeshes.

You could also add that it's inadequate because xEdit only looks at 10 records, 'LVLI', 'LVLC', 'LVLN', 'LVSP', 'CONT', 'FACT', 'RACE', 'FLST', 'CREA', 'NPC_'. Records like CREA are not in Skyrim, so if the record doesn't apply to the game, it's not used.

 

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In March of 2013, Bethesda released their final patch for Skyrim. Version 1.9.32.0.8. Prior to this, Open Cities ( and some other mods ) Skyrim had little trouble operating in the available memory the game provided. In order to configure SKSE 1.7 to resolve this problem, you simply need to make sure your skse.ini file in Data/SKSE contains at least the following lines:

[Memory]
DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB=768
ScrapHeapSizeMB=256

 

If it's not there just make a blank TXT document, add the 3 lines above, and save it as SKSE.ini @ Data/skse

 

#1 rule - NEVER delete a mod once you install it unless you are making a new character - N E V E R !!!

 

3) TES5EDIT is used to do 2 things,

 

(A) verify that your load order is not missing any files that your mods need and

 

(B) verify that no primary files are being loaded after secondary files. When you run TES5EDIT it will throw up an error box and the error will be displayed at the bottom of the right pane / panel. All you have to do is read what it says and it will tell you exactly how to fix the problem in Wrye Bash. Yes, you can open Wrye Bash while TES5EDIT is open so you don't even have to write down what the error is

 

Please remember that while LOOT is a great program it is NOT 100 %

 

All the files in here are in my siggy, just run them in the order I have them listed

 

Let me know if you need any more help

 

EDIT: SKYui should be loaded directly above your bashed patch. SKYui is a menu management mod and thus should be loaded AFTER any other mods except the patch file, Reproccer, ASIS, or an ENB

 

Additional info that may be of use for some people below:

 

1) MotoSxorpio - If you have removed a plugin or changed load order, a reference ID for objects being missing could cause CTD.

 

2) Oubliette - Error checking mod combos isn't impossible it's just a pain to do and no one wants to do it for anyone but themselves - which answers your other question.

The following is standard trouble shooting for mod issues not pinned to a single mod (this is why you test every single mod in your install as you go, individually and with all your other mods - to pinpoint problems at the mod from the very beginning).

First - have you verified your game files through steam and updated to the latest patch?
Second - uncheck all your mods, start a new game, save after the chargen. This will be your 'tester save.' Do Not Overwrite or Delete this save.
Third - Enable five mods.
Four - Go into game with your tester save. Run from one end of the game world to the other. Go into a few cities. Interact with a few things that are mod related. See if anything crashes.
Five - No sign of problems? Repeat 3-5. It crashed or something's not right? Go to step 6.
Six - something crashed? uncheck one of the five mods then go back to your tester save, repeat step 4.

Continue until you have found and fixed your error.

 

Intermediate guide by - Tony971 - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56894/?

 

Advanced guide by - GrandBulwark - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32363/?

 

My other guides:

 

My Fallout 3 guide - http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2247384-fallout-3-beginners-guide-to-modding/&do=findComment&comment=19700029

 

My Fallout 4 guide - http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3886575-fallout-4-beginners-guide/

 

My Fallout New Vegas guide - http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2247404-fallout-new-vegas-beginners-guide-to-modding/

 

I've decided to add all of the info needed for anyone who wants to use Skyrim Redone (SKYre), below

 

1) SkyUI.esp should be loaded directly above the bashed patch

2) SKYre and all of its other files should be loaded directly above SKYui

3) the reproccer and it's files ALWAYS go BELOW the bashed patch

 

Please realize that since you are using the reproccer that ANY time you move files around the reproccer patch HAS to be rebuilt. This also applies to the bashed patch as well, if you move files around the bashed patch has to be rebuilt as well.

 

Also, when you rebuild either the bashed patch or the reproccer patch the other patch has to be disabled. IE: If you're building the bashed patch, disable all of the reproccer files first, and same thing applies in reverse for the single bashed patch

Edited December 1 by gromulos
a thank you to the community

[postal001]

Why shouldn't we use a bashed patch and a merged patch at the same time? Everything I've read online stated that they do different things for Skyrim and we just need to delete the leveled lists from the merged patch.

[gromulos]

because MOST beginners don't know that, hence the thread title, also, most beginners don't even know how to edit the bashed patch

Edited October 29, 2014 by gromulos

[Heppai]

He didnt have to help, he could have just kept fapping away, but he helped anyway. This thread and his solutions helped my backwards problems and now my skyrim runs seamlessly. We worked together until the problem was solved. Please read carefully kids. The solution, barring you didnt put an axe through your screen, is surely fixable using Grom's guide!

Thanks Grom!

[gromulos]

You are most welcome anytime, glad I could help :)

[hackerbam7]

Thanks for the awesome guide man.Everything working really good. :)

[gromulos]

That's great, yw :)

[DukeNukedem]

Thank you for the guide, it helped nudge me in the right direction and learn a bit more about the absolute basics with mods as well as provided some food for thought.

[gromulos]

np Duke, yw :)

[Jacknif]

Simple. But so useful, thank you so much !

 

I'll recommend this to one of my friend that one to mod skyrim again ! Thank ya !