jz3515 Posted June 21, 2019 Share Posted June 21, 2019 So right now i think i've downloaded the mods I wanted after spending nearly 2 weeks of my available time browsing nexus lol... I have a few additional questions that I would like get some opinions.. What I’m wondering though is if I missed any visual mods out there that will be compatible from the list below… also what is currently the best dungeon “visuals” overhaul I should get?? For sound overhauls: Sounds of Skyrim – Civilization SoS – The Dungeons Audio Overhaul for Skyrim SE by DylanJamesWasTaken For enb, im looking for a fantasy realism type of looks that will not be too taxing for my pc.. I’m looking to play at 1080p.. SO here are the 3 im currently torn: Organic ENB (I’m leaning on this one) Intrigued ENB True Beauty of Skyrim ENB some of the “immersion” overhaul mods im using that are worth mentioning are: Immersive Citizens AI overhaul Immersive Wenches Immersive Patrols Warzones Civil Unrest Populated Cities Towns Villages SE by tonycubed2 Populated Lands Roads Paths for SE Crime Overhaul Expanded Organized Bandits in Skyrim SE some of the “visual” overhaul mods im using that are worth mentioning are: JK’s All in One overhaul of towns and cities Skyland – A landscape texture overhaul (I’m wondering if Vivid Landscapes is compatible with this, as I’m leaning towards Skyland; if not, which should I get or which one should be overwritten??) Vivid Landscapes AIO SE Realistic Lighting Overhaul SSE Realistic Water Two Cinematic Fire Effects 2 HD Embers HD by armetis Torches Cast Shadows SE Smoking Torches and Candles by artemis Lore Realistic Grass by Vincento26 Grass FPS Booster Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods Simply Bigger Trees SE (I’ve heard about LOD issues when using Vivid Weathers; not sure how big of an issue this is) Realistic Aspen Trees SE HQ Tree Bark Ethereal Cosmos by gamwich Skyrim is Windy Darker Nights by unforbidable Footprints Enhanced Blood Textures SE Morning Fogs SSE by Ionas117 Nordic Snow by gorefest2011 Vampire Lord Retexture by avike Chappers Demonic Alduin Mashup Odahviing Enhanced 2) for gameplay mods, i'm looking to make it more difficult for me as much as it can combat-wise.. At the moment I’m looking at Combat Evolved, Advanced Adversary Encounters - Ultimate SSE, High Level Enemies.. I’m wondering if: anything is better than the three I’ve listed that will likely be compatible with the mods I’m using which of the 3 I listed is better and if possible all 3 are compatible with each other 3) for some of the overhaul mods, I’m wondering which is better overall over the other: Moonlight tales or Bloodmoon rising for werewolf overhaul mod Better Vampire or Sacrosanct for vampire overhaul mod(excluding compatibility patch as I want to know which gameplay system is better for progression as a standalone mod) Vivid Landscapes or Skyland – A landscape texture overhaul HD Photorealistic Ivy or HD Colorful Ivy Weather mods, which im looking for primarily is just improved visuals: Vivid Weathers(im leaning on this one), Climates of Tamriel, Obsidian Weathers and Seasons, Dolomite Weathers, Cathedral Weathers and Seasons 4) SSE similar of oldrim “A monster Mod” that adds new kinds of monsters to kill that is working lol?? I checked comments section in both “beasts of tamriel mod” and “a monster mod” and I’ve noticed that both mods likely needs an update(especially BoT).. At least the author of AMM is still around, but no info if he is reworking on AMM.. I’ve noticed that most of the problems reported in AMM seems to be missing textures, and alternate solution is to downgrade to an earlier version of the mod.. 5) SSE similar to oldrim “Armed to the teeth” showing your faved/equipped weapons??? 6) so I noticed that in the description of Static Mesh Improvement Mod, you go to bethesda.net for the complete bsa archive version.. I checked it and it says it is v2.3 compared to v2.8 on nexus... so I assume the nexus version is the one you would want or I needed to do something else?? 7) I know this sounds stupid, but is the CK in tools section of steam the one you need for converting oldrim mods to special edition??? Or I needed to download an SSE CK version elsewhere?? Any insights are greatly appreciated.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thumbincubation Posted June 21, 2019 Share Posted June 21, 2019 I have had a lot of success with the entire Populated series, as redone by Tonycubed2, as well as Genesis Unleashed and Genesis Surface Encounters. Those last two add dynamically spawned enemies to dungeons and roads, respectively, as opposed to always being in a known spot. They can be set to have pretty dangerous enemies. Among the other populated mods are ones that include dungeons as well as forts, towers, etc. That last adds 4 man militia patrols, on top of everything else, and I throw Immersive Patrols and NPCs Travel into the mix as well. I tried to add another heavy population mod to the list, but that proved to be a bridge too far for my PC. One thing I think you may experience problems with is combining Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul with JK's or other town/village expansions. There always seem to be navmesh conflicts and CTDs aplenty, that way. I have switched to AI Overhaul SSE (mnikjom / SpiderAkiraC) and have experienced much more stability, although this is still in progress. I use all of Arthmoor's expansions, except Falkreath and Open Cities, in addition to JK's Skyrim and Solitude Expansion, Frostfield settlement, Miserith Hall, and Whitewatch Tower Reborn, without constant CTDs now. I have used the Sounds of Skyrim in the past. I'm not a huge fan of the civilization module (barking dogs, screaming kids, hammering, pretty much all the things that annoy people today) but the wilds and the dungeons modules are on point. The sounds of skyrim dungeon module has actually raised the hair on my neck, in the past. Some sort of tortured, twisting metal half moan thing...*shudder* I am not familiar with the monster mod, but if you want hardcore horror, look to Tonycubed2's Sands of Time mod. You will be awash in zombies. Unfortunately, I know zilch about ENBs and stuff. Sorry. A few quality of life mods you may like. CD Cooley's No Furniture Activation While Sneaking, as well as Better Container Controls, and Sometimes Pickup Books. These stop you from sitting down 12095832 times, when you try to loot a table or near a bed, allow you to dump mass quantities of gear, ingredients, etc., into your containers (similar to take all, but take most and place most with an .ini to help you filter), and pickup books without having to read every one. He also has an enchantment swapper mod, which is helpful. Arthmoor's Ars Metallica will allow you to smelt arms and armor down for materials and exp, and Practice Dummies (available on his site, afk mods) will let you beat on the vanilla dummies, to reach skill rank 30 in 1 handed, 2 handed, archery, and destruction. I can't think of the authors offhand, but there are also Honed Metal and Order My Items, which allow you to pay blacksmiths and enchanters to create, improve, and enchant your gear for you, and to order ingredients and materials from merchants who don't have them on hand. Also much helpful, and immersive if you want to RP as someone who isn't a master of all trades. Finally, for improving the look of the game, you cannot go wrong with Gamwich's Rustic Clothing, windows, and a few others. FrankFamily's Frankly HD armors are also on point, though you will need to choose between the couple of items that both Gamwich and Frank have done, and backfill the rest of the textures, not covered by them, with the Amidianborn Book of Silence, by Cabal120. CK, the version you get from steam is for Oldrim only, as are any/all mods hosted on the steam workshop. For SSE, you would need to go to bethesda.net, download the launcher, and you can get/maintain an updated version of CK64 from there. SSE mods will come here, predominantly, but also some on bethesda.net and a few other sites. If you want some more ideas for visuals, I believe EpicNate on youtube has some videos about visual overhauls and combos of mesh/texture mods. Gamerpoets has many videos, including tutorials for the various modding tools, including LOOT, xedit, wrye bash, etc., and a "5 mods" series, where they showcase 5 useful mods per episode. Maybe you can grab some ideas from there. Hope it helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jz3515 Posted June 21, 2019 Author Share Posted June 21, 2019 I have had a lot of success with the entire Populated series, as redone by Tonycubed2, as well as Genesis Unleashed and Genesis Surface Encounters. Those last two add dynamically spawned enemies to dungeons and roads, respectively, as opposed to always being in a known spot. They can be set to have pretty dangerous enemies. Among the other populated mods are ones that include dungeons as well as forts, towers, etc. That last adds 4 man militia patrols, on top of everything else, and I throw Immersive Patrols and NPCs Travel into the mix as well. I tried to add another heavy population mod to the list, but that proved to be a bridge too far for my PC. One thing I think you may experience problems with is combining Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul with JK's or other town/village expansions. There always seem to be navmesh conflicts and CTDs aplenty, that way. I have switched to AI Overhaul SSE (mnikjom / SpiderAkiraC) and have experienced much more stability, although this is still in progress. I use all of Arthmoor's expansions, except Falkreath and Open Cities, in addition to JK's Skyrim and Solitude Expansion, Frostfield settlement, Miserith Hall, and Whitewatch Tower Reborn, without constant CTDs now. yeah im taking the risk with immersive ai overhaul and jk's town/cities expansions knowing about how ai can get "lost" sometimes... how bad is the ctd with these 2 together??the reason why i chose jk's expansion is because im looking for a mod that "beautifies" cities/towns.. and rather have a bunch of separate mods, i went with a single one.. is there an alternative to jk's that overhauls the "looks" of cities and towns, while at the same time not going to likely create mod conflicts for what mods i plan to use?? I am not familiar with the monster mod, but if you want hardcore horror, look to Tonycubed2's Sands of Time mod. You will be awash in zombies. i looked at this mod as well... i'm still worried because it feels script heavy, and im always wary of script heavy mods bloating my game saves and performance to unreasonable amounts..plus what im looking for is a mod that adds "new different looking" monsters, which what A Monster Mod did during oldrim.. A few quality of life mods you may like. CD Cooley's No Furniture Activation While Sneaking, as well as Better Container Controls, and Sometimes Pickup Books. These stop you from sitting down 12095832 times, when you try to loot a table or near a bed, allow you to dump mass quantities of gear, ingredients, etc., into your containers (similar to take all, but take most and place most with an .ini to help you filter), and pickup books without having to read every one. He also has an enchantment swapper mod, which is helpful. Arthmoor's Ars Metallica will allow you to smelt arms and armor down for materials and exp, and Practice Dummies (available on his site, afk mods) will let you beat on the vanilla dummies, to reach skill rank 30 in 1 handed, 2 handed, archery, and destruction. I can't think of the authors offhand, but there are also Honed Metal and Order My Items, which allow you to pay blacksmiths and enchanters to create, improve, and enchant your gear for you, and to order ingredients and materials from merchants who don't have them on hand. Also much helpful, and immersive if you want to RP as someone who isn't a master of all trades. good to know about this... i will check it out.. Finally, for improving the look of the game, you cannot go wrong with Gamwich's Rustic Clothing, windows, and a few others. FrankFamily's Frankly HD armors are also on point, though you will need to choose between the couple of items that both Gamwich and Frank have done, and backfill the rest of the textures, not covered by them, with the Amidianborn Book of Silence, by Cabal120. i've already gotten those to my list... i thought they are small mods that won't likely create compatability issues, which is why i did not mention them.. CK, the version you get from steam is for Oldrim only, as are any/all mods hosted on the steam workshop. For SSE, you would need to go to bethesda.net, download the launcher, and you can get/maintain an updated version of CK64 from there. SSE mods will come here, predominantly, but also some on bethesda.net and a few other sites. If you want some more ideas for visuals, I believe EpicNate on youtube has some videos about visual overhauls and combos of mesh/texture mods. Gamerpoets has many videos, including tutorials for the various modding tools, including LOOT, xedit, wrye bash, etc., and a "5 mods" series, where they showcase 5 useful mods per episode. Maybe you can grab some ideas from there. Hope it helps.thanks, good to know that the one on steam is not the one im looking for... i assume i have to create a bethesda account to download se ck... also I noticed that in the description of Static Mesh Improvement Mod, you go to bethesda.net for the complete bsa archive version.. I checked it and it says it is v2.3 compared to v2.8 on nexus... so I assume the nexus version is the one you would want or I needed to do something else?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fraquar Posted June 21, 2019 Share Posted June 21, 2019 I've personally take the less is more approach and focus on singular focused mods. Too many things in a mod can upset the balance of multiple game frameworks that makes using them a mess. Better to add those things only if you truly intend to use them. Ex. My vision of a good crafting mod is one that only addresses crafting recipes - nothing more. If I want to add XP gains from smelting ore (and I never would) I'd add it - when it's baked into a mod now I have to go through the whole process of patching a feature out of a mod that I never wanted in the first place - just to be able to use the primary feature of the mod - fixing crafting recipes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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