Lessons From a Lazy Gamer: A Much Better Skyrim Experience

[Halithorn]

So, this is the point that if you are an Elder Scrolls Veteran, you may turn away now and know that you probably will laugh at what I consider to be a revelation.

 

But for me, like a kid in a candy store, downloading a ton of mods and cramming them alltogether with nexus mod manager was my usual MO. Certain things like following all the tweaks and recommendations for each individual mod and starting fresh games seemed to fix the random assortments of glitches I have faced over the years with elder scrolls, but nothing ever seemed to permanently fix all the things one faces: strange textures, freezing, CTD's, corrupted save files, NPC's walking naked in the middle of nowhere. However it never once dawned on me that with my demanding load of mods, the nexus mod manager and BOSS are not the only tools to work with.

 

Wyre Bash may at first seem like a hassle to a newbie, but my god it is worth everything in the world. I always wondered why Skyrim crashed so much and would have glitchy chugging. It turns out it had nothing to do with my specs or PC. It had everything to do with Nexus Manager alone not being enough to fix intricate script, ini, and mod conflict issues. Chances are if you are running more than a few overhaul mods together, you are kidding yourself if you think it isn't really affecting your game in a negative way.

 

Basic Steps: Use NMM to download and keep mods up to date, use Boss to correct the load order, and use Wyre Bash to combine, patch, and tweak it all to a smooth finish. The bashed patch that the program puts toward the end of the load order is the key. Right click it to rebuild the patch, and it helps to tweak and combine mods that normally cancel each other out in the load order. Finally as I learned the hard way, NEVER have skyrim in your programs folder (or programs folder (x86)) because of the security nature of that folder. A mod like ASIS for example will never patch correctly due to microsoft's bizarre programming for that folder. I suggest putting your steam in a newly created directory called C:/Games.

 

There is a learning curve and you will have to do some research to understand a bit more, but I have spent years trying many mods in many combinations. It never worked as well. Now you may have an even better set of programs you use, but point is, NMM and Boss are not enough for the user who wants a plethora of large mods.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Halithorn

[matortheeternal]

My mod loadout, which is over 200 mods, works absolutely wonderfully. I have multiple overhaul mods, and I don't use Wyre Bash.

 

I think common sense and an understanding of what the mods you've activated (and troubleshooting! everyone loves troubleshooting!) can do a person just as well. I haven't used Wyre Bash though. Seemed like, as you said, too much of a hassle. I may consider it though... just for kicks.

[Halithorn]

matortheeternal, on 22 Mar 2013 - 18:56, said:

My mod loadout, which is over 200 mods, works absolutely wonderfully. I have multiple overhaul mods, and I don't use Wyre Bash.

 

I think common sense and an understanding of what the mods you've activated (and troubleshooting! everyone loves troubleshooting!) can do a person just as well. I haven't used Wyre Bash though. Seemed like, as you said, too much of a hassle. I may consider it though... just for kicks.

You might be surprised. If anything it kicks up the frame rate abilities a lot for me. Again a lot is relative. I would say it is best for complicated mods. If you just have 3 complicated mods and then 100 armor mods, then yea, Wyre Bash wouldn't really be worth it. But for example let's say you want to use ASIS, duel combat, and SKYRE. With Nexus Mod Manager only one mod's NPC AI will win out. With Wyre Bash the bashed patch can help to combine mods that otherwise cancel out. Now it's not necessarily game-breaking elements we are talking about, but getting the biggest bang for your buck.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Halithorn

[matortheeternal]

Hmmm.... I use Duel Combat and ASIS. Will have to do some troubleshooting on this.

[RourkeSwift]

I have hesitated to check out Wyre Bash and BOSS because they seemed... difficult, for a derpy old mouthbreather like myself, but your well articulated post has convinced me to try them anyways. Here's praying I don't explode my computajigger.

[moteofdustwow]

To use BOSS you click one button and you are done, it is not difficult in the least :)

[Ragicka]

Thanks for the reminder on installing outside of the Program Files(x86) directory. After a year or so it's about time for a reinstall and hopefully I'll remember to do that this time.

And using Wrye Bash has been on my to-do list for a while but never got around to it. Not really lazy so much, just easily distracted (ooh, shiny things...)

[MightyZ0G]

I was reluctant to use BOSS and Wrye Bash at first because I thought they were too much trouble but they are invaluable.

you will also find TES5edit useful as it fixes the ITM and UDR errors that BOSS reports.

it is really simple to use, just right click on the list of mods, select none then double click on the mod that needs cleaning.

once it has all loaded up, right click on the mod and select filter for cleaning.

once it has finished, right click on it again and select remove ITM

once that has finished right click on it again and select the option to fix UDR errors (it is fairly obvious which option it is but I can't remember the correct name)

 

 

BOSS is also great because it tells you which mods and fixes have been incorporated into the unofficial patches so you can get rid of quite a few mods that are no longer needed.

it also reminds you if mods have a selection of esp files to choose from that you should only use 1

 

don't rely too much on the load order generated by BOSS. some mods need to be at the bottom of the order but BOSS puts them too high up and BOSS puts unknown mods after the bashed patch from Wrye Bash so make sure you check the mod read me files for load order info (RLO and WATER like to be last in the load order and I put the bashed patch after them)

 

once you have used all these a few times they aren't too much hassle