The one-step modded install of any Bethsoft RPG is a pain in the ass for just about everybody involved.
The compiler (I did this once with Morrowind, check the old threads) gets nothing but hate from the hard-core modder community who scream like ass-raped baboons because somebody dared to include their 2+ year old free mod (which they based on somebody else’s work 90% of the time) in a compilation. No, assurances in the readmes that the compilation was just that, all credits listed, etc. don’t help. There are some fragile modder egos out there but the common gripe is “OMG WHAT IF I DECIDE TO FIX A CRITICAL BUG ERROR AND YOU COMPILATION INCLUDES THE VERSION OF MY MOD THAT WILL KILL YOUR SYSTEM FOLDER OMG OMG”. Srsly.
The compiler gets nothing but hate from brain-dead, ADD-addled fuckwits attempting to install the compilation. Never mind that the readme is clear, follow-the-bouncing-ball step-by-step instructions with careful pauses to point out common pratfalls. You put something like “!!!MAKE SURE GAME IS NOT INSTALLED IN DIRECTORY WHATEVER !!!” in 90 pt. type at the top of the document, and the first thing said mouth-breather installer d00d will do is install the game in Directory Whatever, then spam you with “OMG HELO I DO NOT SPEAK THE INGLISH SO WELLS AND YOUR MODS IS DILDOS” emails.
Ugh. So there’s a couple reasons why there aren’t more nicely bow-wrapped compilations.
DeepT
1802
I do have a plot based question which isn’t related to mods, but perhaps someone knows. You know when you first encounter Cissero when he is stuck with the cart and broken wheel? What happens if you kill him then and there? What happens to the Dark brotherhood quest line? Or is he flagged as unkillable?
Wolff
1803
I am fairly sure he is essential except for during one part of the dark brotherhood quest.
It’s been a while since i was doing lots of Skyrim mod checking (i don’t have the game yet, waiting on GOTY or some such), but i seem to recall there are other ‘Make Dragons more dangerous’ type mods besides Deadly Dragons, so you could have a look for those and see if one they don’t need that expansion and also maybe work better? There might even be some combined Creature Pack type mods that include more awesome Dragons?
BTW I love your mod list, very much in the direction mine was going, realism and depth being more important than Whack-a-Mole™ gaming imho.
OMG this is the best thing ever!!!
Skyrim slave mod (NSFW)
Wolff
1806
Wtf is wrong with people?
My favorite new mod is Gypsy Eyes Caravan. Combined with Frostfall, this thing is crazy cool. It really changes the entire atmosphere, as you no longer feel like you’re dashing from city to city, but rather you’re a legitimate traveling adventuring band. While it’s new and thus still has some rough spots, I can’t speak highly enough of this mod. It’s probably my third favorite mod overall now, after Frostfall and Vilja.
I’m running a lot of other mods that together really bring the whole thing together (in addition to a bunch of quality of life/tweaks).
For the traveling adventurer experience I’d suggest as a baseline (plus, always, SKSE and SkyUI)
Gypsy Eyes Caravan
Frostfall (Skyrim actually feels like a harsh, unforgiving environment, and you have to plan ahead when you visit the northern extremes)
Realistic Needs and Diseases
Climates of Tamriel
Wet and Cold
Convenient Horses (it has some bugs with Gypsy Eyes, but you needs horses for the caravan, and horses are useless without a horse mod, and imo this is the best one)
EFF (or another follower mod, to facilitate the adventuring group feel if you want it)
Vilja (in addition to being hands down the best custom follower out there, her cross chatter with your other companions really brings them to life)
Of course about 40 other mods, but these are the ones I see as key to the experience.
I avoid fast travel, unless I need to use it to get out of a game bug like getting stuck in the ground.
Daagar
1808
At least some of Vilja’s dialogue was written by Terry Pratchett? In it goes.
Vilja–is that supposed to be the chick from the song in the operetta The Merry Widow?
Ugh, I had to cut back to ugrids=5 in my current game, as it was creeping into some sort of memory related freeze when loading certain cells. I’d forgotten I even had it at 7, and certainly wouldn’t bother to bump it for future games. Tweaking ugrids has an annoying tendency to work fine for quite a while, then murder things at the 40+ hour mark. Fortunately, I seem to have been able to reset it to 5 without ill effect (so far).
Skyrim was freaking out on me at about the 2.3g ram mark with ugrids 7 in the trouble area; cutting it back to 5 pulled me to 1.8g and removed that particular freeze. It SHOULD be fine up until the low 3 gig mark now that it’s LAA by default according to conventional wisdom, but I found a lot of help requests online where Skyrim would just shit itself at around 2.3 gigs.
I have been seeing the same issue, and now realise I also am at ugrids of 7. I need to look up how to change it back.
Wow, that’s one I didn’t expect to see pop up again. Are you guys running mods?
Quite a few. If I yank a handful of them out (as in, not a specific one causing an issue but rather grabbing any 2-3 out of a set of memory intensive mods) , I can get the memory use down and the game seems happy for the moment. If I check the process when it hangs vs when it doesn’t, with ugrids 7, it’s always right at the 2.3g mark give or take a few megs, at least for crashing at that particular cell. Or, I can just cut ugrids down to the default, dropping memory consumption by about 20%, which is less impactful in terms to the gameplay experience and has the side benefit of being a bit of a performance boost. Obviously I lose out a little in the appearance at a distance.
With the vanilla game I found it worth bumping it. Since the mods scene has really so far surpassed the vanilla game I don’t find it worth the potential decrease in stability.
what 2.3 gb mark are you referencing? size of what?
Memory utilization of the executable. If the game hangs on me I can ctrl-alt-delete to get to the task manager, and see the process using roughly 2.3 GB of RAM.
Looking to start installing mods myself, I found a very useful series of beginners’ guides on YouTube by mod-maker Gopher:
He starts at the very beginning with how to install the Nexus mod manager, UOP, SKSE and SKYUI, then takes you through textures and meshes before going onto other popular mods. He’s a very good speaker, I suspect he has a background in teaching or training, and makes it simple enough for even the most inexperienced modder.
Highly recommended.
Customary shout-out for the sheer solid-gold genius that is Mod Organizer. NMM is fine for light modding, but if you plan on trying out lots and lots and lots of mods, you need the “virtual” system of MO, so you can have an ongoing “main” game or two, with carefully chosen mods that’s totally untouched by any experimentation you’re doing with mods. You can have a “main” game going smoothly with umpteen “experimental” games with dozens of broken mods ongoing on the side. Essential, essential, essential.
Hope I’m not necroing this thread, but finally picked up Skyrim on the Steam sales and looking for what is the best way to add a few interface tweaks, such as SkyUI, etc but I’m gonna try and stay as close to Vanilla gameplay to start off. I see references to Nexus Mod Manager, Mod Organizer and even adding mods direct through Steam’s workshop. What would be the way recommended by you experts? I’ve used Nexus Mod Manager before, but not with a Steam powered game.
godhugh
1819
If you just want to do some UI tweaks then NMM should be fine. If you think you might ever want to do more then I would recommend learning Mod Organizer.
The first few episodes of the YouTube series I linked above should get you going. As I said he starts out with basic stuff, just stop watching when he gets to the stuff that changes gameplay.
