Skyrim: mods and tweaks

[Daagar]

BiggerBoat: There is a mod out there called SPERG (I don’t name em…) that focuses on just the perk trees if SkyRe is a bit too dramatic of a change. Sounds pretty solid, but doesn’t seem to be as well known.

[Maniac]

So. I want to “live” in the Skyrim world. And a mod like Frostfall forces a player into making decisions. Most of the time, those decisions aren’t very interesting…but the hope is that you get enough moments where the mod does ask you to make interesting choices. If I’m up around Windhelm, to I wear one set of mod that gives me more protection in combat, or do I wear another set that gives me more protection from the cold? A realistic needs mod might be making your character tired and hungry while you’re out on a journey…but what if you’re in a terrible spot to pitch a camp? Do you press forward with the negative modifiers to your combat skills and hope you don’t run into a fight you can’t handle, or do you chance it against the elements and build a camp in the middle of a snowstorm?

So are their penalties to setting up camp in the middle of a snowstorm? I had been reading up on Frostfall, but then I read this:

Find or build shelter!

Tents can warm you up slowly by themselves. Hide tents are great in cold, snowy areas, and allow you to reduce more of your exposure than a Leather tent. Leather tents are waterproof, which makes them ideal when camping in the southern Holds where it can rain frequently. If you are using a Large tent, just standing inside is all that is needed to begin warming up and drying off; you do not have to sit or lie down.

TIP: During bad weather conditions, a campfire and an appropriate tent is the only way to reduce your exposure to 0! Plan ahead!

This gives me the impression that as long as you set up your tent once in a while, you’re good to go. I’d love a mod which forces you to pick your sleeping and camping spots wisely, but if there are no such restrictions, such needs mods just boil down to doing a repetitive task occasionally.

[Jab]

I was gifted a copy of Skyrim tonight (thanks mcmaster) and I’m hoping that this would be the first TES game that I can get into. Some of my friends were telling me that this is one of those games where mods can make a huge difference.

As someone who has zero knowledge on getting mods for Skyrim or the whole mod scene. Is there a cliffs notes version of how to download mods and what are some must haves?

[triggercut]

I was gifted a copy of Skyrim tonight (thanks mcmaster) and I’m hoping that this would be the first TES game that I can get into. Some of my friends were telling me that this is one of those games where mods can make a huge difference.

As someone who has zero knowledge on getting mods for Skyrim or the whole mod scene. Is there a cliffs notes version of how to download mods and what are some must haves?

For your first time jumping in, don’t worry too much about mods. I’d say be sure to grab the hi-res texture pack offered as DLC from Bethesda (you have to go to the store page to access it I think) and then maybe grab these UI mods from the Skyrim Nexus or Steam Workshop:

SKSE (Skyrim Script Expander)

Which makes some of these work:

SkyUI (UI improvements)
Categorized Favorites Menu
Better Dialogue Choices
Better Message Box Controls

Then go have 20-30 hours of fun, decide what works for you and what doesn’t, and chances are the stuff you like can be enhanced, and the stuff you don’t like can be fixed or changed markedly.

[triggercut]

This gives me the impression that as long as you set up your tent once in a while, you’re good to go. I’d love a mod which forces you to pick your sleeping and camping spots wisely, but if there are no such restrictions, such needs mods just boil down to doing a repetitive task occasionally.

Well, yeah, as long as you set up a good camp you’re fine…

…but what if you’re out of firewood for a fire?

[Octavious230]

Ya I would agree that it would be a bad idea to jump into mods without playing the base game first. You wouldn’t even know what you want to change. You can play through the entire game without any major mods and have a blast. This isn’t Oblivion.

Still messing around with the lighting mods. I have been able to get the ENB stuff working at a good clip now. I redid my entire Skyrim install so it must have been some setting I mucked around with at some point. I want to use COT + the enhanced lighting mod, but the results are less then stellar. The torch lighting just looks off. I think I might have to just ditch the enhanced lighting until it gets fleshed out more. There’s areas he hasn’t even touched yet like the DLC. Such a cool mod though. I love that you can see the daylight changes inside the buildings it’s stunning.

[quarryman]

For your first time jumping in, don’t worry too much about mods. I’d say be sure to grab the hi-res texture pack offered as DLC from Bethesda (you have to go to the store page to access it I think) and then maybe grab these UI mods from the Skyrim Nexus or Steam Workshop:

SKSE (Skyrim Script Expander)

Which makes some of these work:

SkyUI (UI improvements)
Categorized Favorites Menu
Better Dialogue Choices
Better Message Box Controls

Then go have 20-30 hours of fun, decide what works for you and what doesn’t, and chances are the stuff you like can be enhanced, and the stuff you don’t like can be fixed or changed markedly.

Very good advice. The only must have mod for me is SkyUI which means you don’t have to put up with the console suited UI.

And then the HD textures from Bethesda.

[Octavious230]

Well, yeah, as long as you set up a good camp you’re fine…

…but what if you’re out of firewood for a fire?

It’s hard enough with the way he has it now. Making it so you can’t setup tent in a blizzard would probably push it into the drive you insane level. Even with the realistic needs mod I ended up turning the settings down a bit. My guy couldn’t make it 8 hours without wanting to take a nap. Lazy SOB.

[Maniac]

…but what if you’re out of firewood for a fire?

When’s that ever gonna happen? There are chopping blocks where you can get firewood for free all over Skyrim. Just keep some in reserve in your inventory at all times. There’s no shortage of woodchopper’s axes either.

The only way a basic needs mod could work for me is if walking in bad weather or setting up camp at a bad spot had economic consequences, if it cost you scarce consumables to do so. For instance, your tent could fall into disrepair, or perhaps you’re forced to use a frost resistance potion. Until then, basic needs feels like busywork to me.

[Maniac]

It’s hard enough with the way he has it now.

I don’t understand. High exposure level => set up camp. Where’s the difficulty or the interesting decisions?

[Octavious230]

Maybe hard wasn’t the best word for it, but for me it’s about making me have to think and prepare. I’m pretty careless so it’s entirely possible I could be wandering around in a blizzard without wood or a tent.

I could see how some people would want to take it that step farther and put more restrictions. Suggest it on the mod page he might add it as an option. With the new SKYUI it’s super easy to go in and turn stuff on and off.

[Papageno]

So I, um, downloaded the Temptress mod from Skyrimnexus with NMM, and have got to admire the work of the modders. One of the character models (that I actually got to see in-game last night) is a dead ringer for Lena Headey.

Anyway, this mod is apparently compatible with Ultimate Follower Overhaul (so I could keep Lydia around and have another follower as well). In case I can’t make UFO work right, remind me what happens if I dismiss Lydia? Does she go to my house in Whiterun?

And does the UFO mod install with NMM without issue or should I do a manual install?

[Jab]

For your first time jumping in, don’t worry too much about mods. I’d say be sure to grab the hi-res texture pack offered as DLC from Bethesda (you have to go to the store page to access it I think) and then maybe grab these UI mods from the Skyrim Nexus or Steam Workshop:

SKSE (Skyrim Script Expander)

Which makes some of these work:

SkyUI (UI improvements)
Categorized Favorites Menu
Better Dialogue Choices
Better Message Box Controls

Then go have 20-30 hours of fun, decide what works for you and what doesn’t, and chances are the stuff you like can be enhanced, and the stuff you don’t like can be fixed or changed markedly.

What’s the easiest way to find and download these? I found SkyUI on steam, but do I still need SKSE if I get it through the steam mod section?

[triggercut]

What’s the easiest way to find and download these? I found SkyUI on steam, but do I still need SKSE if I get it through the steam mod section?

SKSE is right here, and you need what it does for SkyUI to work:

http://skse.silverlock.org/

People are always apparently screwing up how to install SKSE, so here’s a walkthrough on doing it right.

Grab the current SKSE build. As of me typing this, it’s 1.06.05. Download it to your desktop or somewhere convenient.

Find the directory where you installed Skyrim. If you just straight-up installed Skyrim with default choices it’ll be in

X:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\

or

X:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\

All depends on your OS I think, and “X” obviously is the drive letter where you’ve got Steam installed. At any rate, you want to find the directory that has TESV.exe and SkyrimLauncher.exe in it, along with a bunch of other stuff obviously.

Open that directory, and stick the zipped SKSE file you downloaded into it, and then rightclick and “extract here…”

Once you’ve done that, find the file called “skse_loader.exe”. That’s your new executable file to launch games of Skyrim with. You can launch with TESV.exe or SkyrimLauncher.exe, but you won’t get the benefits of having SKSE running, and any mods that depend on it won’t work right. You can rightclick skse_loader.exe and make a shortcut for your desktop, or if you eventually decide to start adding more mods, both the Nexus Mod Manager AND the Mod Organizer utilities both will let you set up so that you launch the game with skse_loader.exe running.

Hope that helps!

The rest of the mods I listed can all be found under those exact mod names at the Nexus.

Categorized Favorites is here:
http://www.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4862

When you tag items to come up as “favorites” (spells, shouts, swords, bows, arrows, etc.), it puts them into easy-to-find and access categories when you pull up your favorites.

Better Dialogue Controls is here:
http://www.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27371
Skyrim has this annoying tendency to occasionally select a dialogue choice you didn’t mean for it to. This fixes that. Simple stuff, but really great. (Yeah, I listed the name wrong earlier; my bad!)

Better MessageBox Controls is here:
http://www.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/28170
Skyrim sometimes does the same thing with message box choices. This fixes that.

[godhugh]

So I, um, downloaded the Temptress mod from Skyrimnexus with NMM, and have got to admire the work of the modders. One of the character models (that I actually got to see in-game last night) is a dead ringer for Lena Headey.

Anyway, this mod is apparently compatible with Ultimate Follower Overhaul (so I could keep Lydia around and have another follower as well). In case I can’t make UFO work right, remind me what happens if I dismiss Lydia? Does she go to my house in Whiterun?

And does the UFO mod install with NMM without issue or should I do a manual install?

She goes back to Whiterun and waits for you in your house there. UFO installs fine with NMM.

What’s the easiest way to find and download these? I found SkyUI on steam, but do I still need SKSE if I get it through the steam mod section?

Yes, you still need SKSE. Get SKSE at http://skse.silverlock.org/ and just extract the 7z file straight into your main Skyrim folder (where the exe is). That’s all it takes to install it. You’ll then run the game using skse_loader.exe instead of the standard executable.

Easiest way to get those mods is to install NMM from Skyrim Nexus and then install the mods from there.

[Papageno]

One more thing to add to triggercut’s excellent explanation: you should already have Steam running when you doubleclick the SKSE/Skyrim launcher.

And thanks, triggercut, for the heads up on the Dialogue Controls mod–that’s been driving me crazy lately.

EDIT: Also thanks to godhugh for the answer about Lydia and UFO with NMM.

[Pogo]

Jab, get what Triggercut told you to get and go and play the game. You won’t know what mods you might want until you’ve played it.

[godhugh]

Jab, get what Triggercut told you to get and go and play the game. You won’t know what mods you might want until you’ve played it.

Also grab the Unofficial Skyrim Patch. It installs easily with NMM as well.

[Papageno]

Hmm, I installed the Ultimate Follower Overhaul via NMM, and had Lydia in tow, but when I recruited the new follower, suddenly Lydia was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t save the game just in case. I thought UFO supported multiple followers.

[BrianRubin]

At least you still had Lydia in tow. I lost her ages ago, no idea how. :(