[Help]LE or SE?

[Zikimura]

Hello Nexus Modding Community

 

I am a (not so) new member that has been haunting the site for quite some time, but I now desire to join fully.

 

Question is, which Skyrim should I buy? The Legendary or Special? I know the difference between the two, but am unsure which one would be better for me.

 

I have an Asus K55VM upgraded to 8GB RAM with the i7-3610QM. I have been looking into Eurocom, but I'm still unsure on whether I should get one this year.

 

I haven't had time to research exact statistics, but currently which has more mods? Also, is SE backwards compatible when it comes to mods? Will I be able to play LE mods on SE?

 

Thank you for your time and help. It's much appreciated.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Zikimura

[Jeir]

LE has more mods, due to having half a decade for people to work with.

SE has fewer mods but is apparently more stable. Many mods have not been ported due to technical issues (no SKSE for SE) or due to the original author of the mods not being around any more.

SE mods are not compatible with LE.

LE mods can be compatible with SE, if they're just meshes/textures, but plugins must be converted with the CK to the new format. Also mods that require SKSE need to be remade entirely due to the lack of the script extender (thus with some functionality/features removed), or else not ported until SKSE64 is released, whenever that will be.

[Zikimura]

So one has more while the other has the potential to have more? Am I getting that right?

 

Well, I found a LE for less than 20 euro, so maybe I should start with that and then move on to the SE at a later date?

 

Thanks for the info, I will take it into consideration. And I'm not saying that just to be polite, I really will :D

[Belitchu]

Never played LE, but I regret purchasing SE. LE has more mods, more and better ENBs hence you can achieve better graphics (if you are interested in that). Plus SKSE, which makes the game more modular and you can have interesting stuff like extensively editing your character's details with ECE or Racemenu, better HUD or a more user-friendly inventory and even physics applied to your character and NPCs. SE doesn't have all that (well kinda, there are some workarounds like an earlier version of SkyUI working for SE). The only downside as far as I can tell is you'll have to save more often, SE is very stable but from what I've read from other users LE crashes regularly (every 30 minutes or so? I don't have a first hand experience but from what I can gather the more mods you have installed the more often your game will probably crash).

 

That's my input, good luck with whatever choice you make.

[Kazuya482]

LE remains the overall superior version.

[AleCuneo]

On my previous Alienware I ran basic Skyrim with all DLC's other than Hearthfire. Modding it was the best fun I've ever had with a game. Stability became a headache so I stopped playing for about 2 or 3 years then decided to buy LE and start afresh with my mods. Once again wonderful fun but too many crashes.

I now have an Alienware AW17 R4 with the highest spec possible so I decided to buy SE. I didn't know it wasn't mod friendly so I hope that SKSE x64 will be released eventually but I fear that will never happen as the game is now rather old. I read on Steam Community that you can mod SE provided you accept that it will disable all your achievements. Can anyone confirm that as being true because from what I've understood here standard mods (read bsa, esm, and esp) are totally incompatible with SE?

[Jeir]

On my previous Alienware I ran basic Skyrim with all DLC's other than Hearthfire. Modding it was the best fun I've ever had with a game. Stability became a headache so I stopped playing for about 2 or 3 years then decided to buy LE and start afresh with my mods. Once again wonderful fun but too many crashes.

 

I now have an Alienware AW17 R4 with the highest spec possible so I decided to buy SE. I didn't know it wasn't mod friendly so I hope that SKSE x64 will be released eventually but I fear that will never happen as the game is now rather old. I read on Steam Community that you can mod SE provided you accept that it will disable all your achievements. Can anyone confirm that as being true because from what I've understood here standard mods (read bsa, esm, and esp) are totally incompatible with SE?

SE currently has over 11k mods (or at least, mod pages), so no, it's not 'incompatible' with mods. It's just incompatible with LE mods, which, as I mentioned, have to be properly ported. Also, many mods have not or will not be ported due to lack of SKSE64/mod authors moving on to other things.

You only lose achievements if you're on console. On PC, we've had a fix for it almost since the start.

[AleCuneo]

Brilliant news Jeir! Thanks.

So have the SE mods been separated or do you have to run a filtered search for SE compatible mods?
And can I still use NMM or is it better to manually install them?

[Jeir]

Brilliant news Jeir! Thanks.

 

So have the SE mods been separated or do you have to run a filtered search for SE compatible mods?

And can I still use NMM or is it better to manually install them?

If you click the link I posted, you'll see it takes you to a mod page on the Skyrim Special Edition Nexus. They've always been separate.

No opinion about if you should use NMM/whatever. I only install manually (sometimes with Wrye Bash) and have never used NMM/MO. Use what you like.

[AleCuneo]

Thanks!! :)