Skyrim mod questions

[ianpwilliams]

Having only ever played Skyrim once on Xbox 360, I've now installed Skyrim (not special edition) + all DLC from the Elder Scrolls Anthology, and I'm hoping to install lots of mods to make it new and improved.

 

I wasn't sure where to begin because there are so many mods, so I chose the ones that I liked the sound of (which is most of them) from here:

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/best-skyrim-mods/

 

This gave me the following list:

 

Sky UI5

Unofficial Skyrim Patches

Vendor Sale Delay

Realistic Humanoid Movement Speed

Not So Fast

Project Optimization

Immersive HUD

Enhanced Camera

Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul

2K Textures - can my PC handle full version?

Climates of Tamriel

Static Mesh Improvement

Skyrim Flora Overhaul

Realistic Water Two

Xenius Character Improvement

Lanterns of Skyrim - All In One

Enderal: The Shards of Order

Qaxe's Questorium

Cutting Room Floor

Heljarchen Farm

The Forgotten City

Sea of Ghosts

Enhanced Skyrim Factions - The Companions

Legendary cities

Hidden Hideouts of Skyrim

Falskaar

Moon and Star

Helgen Reborn

Descent into Madness

The Notice Board

Ranger Cabins

Corners of Skyrim

Simply Knock

Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival

Campfire - Complete Camping System

Religion - Prayer Meditation Workshop

Alternate Start

New Beginnings

Open Cities Skyrim

Realistic Needs and Diseases

Sounds of Skyrim

Wet and Cold

Hunterborn

Armoured Skeletons and the Walking Dead

Enhanced Mighty Dragons

Bellyache's Animal and Creature Pack

Immersive Creatures

Tame the Beasts of Skyrim

High Level Enemies

Realistic Animals and Predators

Zim's Immersive Artifacts

Immersive Weapons

Honed Metal

Warmonger Armory

Guard Dialogue Overhaul

Diverse Guards

Immersive Patrols

Run For Your Lives

Travelers of Skyrim

Immersive College of Winterhold

Individualize Shout Cooldowns

Perkus Maximus

Duel: Combat Realism

Apocalypse—Magic of Skyrim

Sneak Tools

Thunderchild

Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul

Ish's Souls to Perks

I was hoping to use NMM to download and install the mods (although obviously I will check the install instructions for each mod as I go), and I also intend to use SKSE (clearly required by a lot of mods), and LOOT, which might hopefully sort the load order and report problems.

My questions, if anyone is able to help, are as follows:

1. Is there any way of telling whether these mods are for Skyrim original or Skyrim Special Edition? Looking at some of the mod pages I would guess Skyrim, but I'd like to be sure
2. How do I know whether they will all work with each other? Do I just rely on LOOT? I've tried to avoid mods that affect the same area of the game
3. Will all of the mods support a gamepad? Ideally I want to be able to start the game up and then not need to touch the keyboard and mouse at all (I don't mind loading it up and tweaking things until I'm happy with the mod settings), partly because I want to play it like a console game on the big TV, but also because I will be too far away from the computer when I'm playing
4. Will my PC be able to handle all these mods (it can handle vanilla Skyrim on Ultra High settings)? My specs are as follows:

 

Operating System Windows 7 Professional Media Center Edition

OS Service Pack -

DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)

CPU Type 4x , 4000 MHz

System Memory 16220 MB

Video Adapter Intel® HD Graphics 4600 (1024 MB)

Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

Audio Adapter Sound Blaster Audio Controller [NoDB]

Disk Drive KINGSTON SV300S37A120G SCSI Disk Device (111 GB)

Disk Drive ST2000DM 001-1ER164 SCSI Disk Device (1863 GB)

Optical Drive TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224DB SCSI CdRom Device

C: (NTFS) 103544 MB (7131 MB free)

D: (NTFS) 1907727 MB (563233 MB free)

USB Device M-Audio Fast Track Pro

Thanks for any anticipated help!

 

[WastelandAssassin]

I'll try to answer as much as I can

 

1. there is a different site for Skyrim and SE

since you are using the original Skyrim , make sure to download the mods from this site https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim

if you try to install SE mods , your game won't start

also make sure to get SKSE , not SKSE64

 

2. usually with popular mods , it will be reported if they don't work with other mods (it will usually be written in the mod's description , under compatibility or incompatibility)

other than that , you can look at the comment sections

but in general if two mods don't do anything similar , they should work together just fine

you can also look up suggested mod lists , these usually list mods that were tested to work together , so it can help you start

 

3. I've never used a gamepad , so I can't promise anything

but from a quick glance at the mod list , there doesn't seem to be any mod that might add more buttons or hotkeys , so I would hazard a guess that it would work

but you'll need to check how to set up Skyrim with a gamepad , I'm sure there is a guide online

 

4. I wouldn't recommend going with a full graphical build with your specs

the original Skyrim isn't the most stable game , and with too many graphical mods it may crash rather often

I would suggest going for graphical options that still look good , but don't try to go full 4K or something like that

 

as a side note , Enderal isn't a standard mod . it is a total overhaul of the game , so you can't run it on your Skyrim like a normal mod (it's basically a new game , with it's own executable and all that)

so you should play it separate from Skyrim (there is even a mod section for Enderal mods on the Skyrim Nexus , get these mods when you decide to play Enderal)

beyond this , I would suggest that you start small , watch a few modding tutorials and thoroughly test your game before you make your final mod build

you want to never remove mods from your active save file , and try to generally minimize the problems and crashes you might have

make sure to get all the suggested tools for making the game more stable (they are usually mentioned at the beginning of modding tutorials , as these are usually some of the first steps)

things will probably not work too well early on , but modding is a learning experience , so expect hiccups but if you persevere it should be fine

and try to enjoy it , modding your first Bethesda game is quite the experience :)

[ianpwilliams]

Thatâs brilliant, thanks for taking the time to answer! I never knew that Enderal was virtually a separate game, itâs amazing the time that people have taken to create these mods. Iâll go with âgoodâ graphics settings as you say, which with mods applied will still be way better than the Xbox 360 version was!

 

Thanks again :)

[WastelandAssassin]

no problem

 

also , make sure to carefully read the installation instructions of the mods you are going to use

for example , Perkus Maximus has a patcher that needs to be run after you set your load order , to integrate all items properly with the mod

other mods might have specific instructions on how or when to install them (I know some mods need to be installed before others , due to compatibility issues)

so go carefully with this , and you should be fine

 

as for Enderal , it's made by SureAI , a wonderful German (I think) team that has been making amazing overhauls for Bethesda games (2 for Morrowind , 1 for Oblivion which I can testify was amazing , and now Enderal for Skyrim)

they are indeed making some amazing work with these games , and they are rather unique in this sense , but it's true that the modding community is amazing , and has improved these games in ways we can't really comprehend (you'll see as you compare a fully modded PC game to the XBox version , it's a whole other world :) )

[ianpwilliams]

Yes I really enjoyed Morrowind and Oblivion (but both on Xbox), and Morrowind was always my favourite Elder Scrolls even with the limitations of the Xbox version, so hopefully modded Morrowind on PC will be amazing.

[ianpwilliams]

I have a few mod-specific questions if you or anyone can help...

 

None of the links work for the Unofficial Skyrim patches on this page:

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/best-skyrim-mods/2/

 

Is anyone able to direct me to the unofficial patches?

 

I was planning on going with the 2K Textures mod to improve appearance. Static Mesh Improvement (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8655/?), recommends using it with Official High-Res DLC, but would this not be similar to 2K Textures? I don't want to be installing more than more texture-improvement mod.

 

I like the sound of the mods Enhanced Mighty Dragons and Duel: Combat Realism. However I'm concerned that these may make the game too hard, and whilst I would like it to be challenging, I also want it to be fun. Does anyone have experience with these mods? Do they dramatically increase the difficulty? I can imagine that Duel: Combat Realism would be great if you were a melee character because combat might be more tactical, but I wonder if your character would be doomed if they were surrounded by enemies, possibly with ranged characters attacking also?

Edited May 8, 2018 by ianpwilliams

[TheGreatFalro]

The old Unofficial Patches were merged into the Legendary Edition Patch:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71214

 

No need to have the official high res pack. It's terribly buggy, anyway. Just disable it from the Steam library page, under DLC.

 

Can't comment on the last one, sorry.

[ianpwilliams]

Great, thanks for that. I'll post on the mod pages for Enhanced Mighty Dragons and Duel: Combat Realism, hopefully someone will be able to help.

[DarkRudra]

As a gamepad user who uses a majority of the mods on your list, I don't think you'll have any problems there.

 

A couple of things to note:

 

The Notice Board - Be sure to search for related mods on Nexus. You'll be able to find some fixes and expansions not included on the main Notice Board page. You might also consider a mod called Missives, which is similar but seems to have fewer issues.

 

Perkus Maximus - If you're new to modding, you might want to skip that one. It can be a beast to get it working right with all the patches needed to make it compatible to other mods. If you just want a perk overhaul, you might try Ordinator instead. Much easier to work with.

[ianpwilliams]

Great, thanks, Iâll probably try Missives instead of Notice Board, and Ordinator instead of Perkus Maximus. Anything for an easier life!