Question about adding mods during a playthrough

[pw508]

Now I know it's not a great idea to alter your load order during a playthrough, and I know it's a lot worse to remove mods than add them. But besides conflicts with bashed patches and that kind of thing, how risky is it to actually add them?

 

The only time I ever add mods mid playthrough is if they are mods that add new things rather than overwrite existing records (such as David Cobbs new Skyrim Outfit System mod), and when I do add them I put them at the very end of the load order since they can't conflict with anything, and I do check for conflicts with Tes5edit. I read somewhere, when I first started learning to mod the game, that if you're going to add mods during a playthrough it's best to add them to the very end of the load order so it doesn't change the location of any already loaded mods. Does anyone know if this is actually true?

[Deleted5396936User]

For most mods, it's fine to add them mid-playthrough. You do have to look out for certain mods though. Mainly, mods that alter the vanilla game like overhauls (simple retextures/model replacers are no worries though), or just really big/heavily scripted mods. To be safe, always check the mod's description to see if it specifically says anywhere that you shouldn't add it in the middle of a playthrough.

 

And yes it's good to keep an eye out for conflicts. I recommend sorting your load order with LOOT any time you add a new mod. After adding anything, it's always worth it to load up the game and test its stability before actually moving on with your playthrough. Never overwrite a good clean save immediately after adding a mod, just in case.

Edited April 16, 2019 by Guest

[pw508]

Thanks for the reply! What about adding mods to the middle of the load order during a game though? Since adding an extra esp will push all the mods below it down one spot could this be a problem?

[Deleted5396936User]

There shouldn't be any issues with that. I've played Skyrim and have added mods mid-playthough countless times without issue - mainly what is much more problematic is removing mods from your load order.

 

Re-sorting your load order shouldn't cause issues unless it's done incorrectly (like putting a mod above it's master, etc.) The game handles changed load orders perfectly fine - but missing mod files from something that was removed can actually cause issues. In other words, don't worry about adding mods or changing your load order (as long as you do it correctly - LOOT makes it easy), but do be incredibly cautious if you plan to remove something.

 

I hope that helps.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Guest