Skyrim Modding: Just Spent 10 Hours Modding, Time to Play

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Skyrim Modding: Just Spent 10 Hours Modding, Time to Play

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

I've read through the OP and many of the pages on this thread, and haven't found a solution to this yet: is there any way to check which version of a mod you have stored in bulk other than using NMM? I really want to like NMM, but it constantly duplicates mod names for things like optional files, which results in me inadvertently deleting them, thinking they are duplicates. My preference is to just use Wrye, but that only lets me go to a Nexus page, one-at-a-time. Mod Organizer looks nice, except that it maintains its own library unzipped (unlike Wrye, which can leave everything in .7z format).

Any thoughts, guidance, or "for godsakes go read such-and-such" would be greatly appreciated.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 21:40

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 02:46

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

LtSmash posted:

Use MO. Really.

It doesn't keep an unzipped library, it just doesn't install mods into Skyrim/data but their own MO/Mods/<mod name>/ folder. It then uses black magic to turn all of those into the /data/ folder skyrim sees. Wrye bash and nmm and anything else just spray all of a mod's files into /data/ when you install them. The only way a MO install will take up more room than a wrye install is if you have tons of conflicting files that would get overwritten as wrye installs the mods.

I'm taking the plunge and ditching Wrye and using Mod Organizer (though Wrye of course still makes a bashed patch). So far it's proving easier to use than NMM and Wrye, and it's fast.

I'm now trying to setup the Texture Pack Combiner, but it breaks if you don't use very specific, usually older versions of many mods. Is there a poor man's guide such as, "Here's a bunch of texture packs. Just give them this precedence order and things won't look terrible."?

# ¿ Dec 16, 2013 21:52

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

What's broken with Warzone?

# ¿ Dec 24, 2013 23:43

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

LtSmash posted:

Noooooooo! A Merged Patch is like a bashed patch but made by tesedit. Load all your mods (minus things like skyproc mods that have dynamic patches) in tesedit and wait for the finished loading message. Then right click on a blank space in the left panel and choose create merged patch. It will say its not supported but click ok, then give it a name. It will work for a while and eventually make a new esp with the conflicting records merged together. Make sure you save it when you exit. Then activate it in your load order and make any dynamic patches like automatic variants or DSR or reproccer. You might have to add a BOSS user rule to make sure the merged patch loads before those.

The other kind of merged patch that involves renumbering formids, like the script does, just mashes the contents of separate mods together. Its only useful if you have more than 255 mods since that's the limit of the number of esm/esp files skyrim will allow. It only works on simple mods since if they involve scripts or complex references between entries they will almost certainly get messed up.

Your posts have been extremely helpful, and have made things far clearer than STEP, etc. (which are themselves pretty good). If I understand the general sequence correctly:

1. Launch everything through Mod Organizer. Seriously, everything.
2. Load mods into Mod Organizer
3. Select the mods you want to use
4. Run BOSS
5. Organize the mods in the left-hand pane of Mod Organizer in the same priority as BOSS organized the ESPs and ESMs in the right-hand pane
6. Run Wrye Bash
7. Create Bashed Patch
8. Activate Bashed Patch
9. Run TES5Edit
10. Create Merged Patch
11. Activate Merged Patch
12. Create various proccer patches (e.g. Automatic Variants)
13. Activate various proccer patches
14. Run SKSE_Loader
15. Play Skyrim until you decide to play with mods some more

Is this correct?

# ¿ Jan 8, 2014 02:01

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Skyrim Modding/Troubleshooting - Permanent corpses act as ugly storage chests

# ¿ Jan 8, 2014 16:33

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

You can press F and pan around your character while in third person, even while moving. I don't think this works if you have a weapon unsheathed, but it may. (You would need to keep the F key depressed).

# ¿ Jan 10, 2014 17:39

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

The encoding method issue has been happening to me sporadically over the past couple weeks. My speculation is that Nexus itself is messing something up. I tried opening them manually, and they're messed up as well. This may only affect RAR files, and not 7z files, though I haven't tested thoroughly.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2014 20:22

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Is there anyway to set "Mod Organizer installation for Skyrim" as the default for NMM links for skyrim.nexusmods.com, and "Mod Organizer installation for Oblivion" as the default for NMM links for oblivion.nexusmods.com? I wish Mod Organizer just had an "application profile" to handle this sort of thing (which would expand to include "Fallout 3" and "Fallout New Vegas" as well, obviously).

# ¿ Jan 13, 2014 20:48

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

LtSmash posted:

The ENB effect on ram is different but also helpful. Vanilla skyrim keeps textures in both system ram and vram which is dumb since textures are only ever used in vram. ENB can force skyrim to clear textures from system ram once they are loaded into vram. This also makes it less likely to hit the buggy get more ram stage since textures won't be hogging it.

Is there a way to tell ENB not to do this? I'm running with 24GB of RAM and 4GB of VRAM (on a laptop :smug:

) and am more than happy to give Skyrim all the memory it can handle.

poptart_fairy posted:

e2; apparently I was missing Spike.esm from Immersive Armours. A mod that was working perfectly fine before I installed Immersive Animations...

I seem to recall someone earlier in this thread said that the latest version of Immersive Armors (v7) no longer users SPIKE.esm. It may be worth checking.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2014 01:01

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Perhaps the script controlling it stopped running?

# ¿ Jan 26, 2014 21:03

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

No idea. I'm speculating from my phone in the hope someone will read my post and provide specifics.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2014 21:42

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

A command line interface for MO would be great. If it had one, we could write a script for STEP or whatever other package you want. Ideally a CLI would need the ability to download, check download status, install manually, change data directories, and call other executables.

Bonus points for an MO distribution that comes with Wrye, TES5Edit, BOSS, etc. prepackaged.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2014 13:20

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

This guide on Nexus just popped up, purporting to provide a good overview of settings, tweaks, and mods to make even a heavily-modded Skyrim stable. Has anybody looked at this and determined if it's quality work or just snake oil? (I'm a late 2013 reg and I already trust this community with such things more than anyplace else. I guess it's time to drop another :10bux:

for a premium subscription.).

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50244/

∨∨∨ Thanks. I didn't realize that, and only knew about it because I saw it used elsewhere. It's now removed.

Ynglaur fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jan 28, 2014

# ¿ Jan 27, 2014 23:03

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Does Lootify remove any levelled list work an ESP does, or does it just add things to levelled lists that weren't there before? I like lots of variety, so I'm thinking that if I grab every Automatic Variants pack I can find, and every item and armor that looks decent and then Lootify them, that will give a nice variety to the world. (JRPG-style swords and anime power armor need not apply. I like my immersion.)

# ¿ Jan 30, 2014 05:01

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Overemotional Robot posted:

Has anybody else had trouble with Automatic Variants only working on some creatures but not all? The draugr in my game have variants, but I'm not seeing anything with farm animals and stuff. However, I'm also getting a mix of low and high textures so it may be an issue of something getting overwritten.

One of the options when running AV is to include or exclude original textures. It's set to "include" by default.

LtSmash - While you're brainstorming...what I'd really love is some way to get a bunch of models and textures and whatever the mod author named Their Cool Thing, ditch all of the crappy "I placed my Cool Thing in a completely-out-of-place trunk in the middle of the road at the gate of Riverrun", and just have the Cool Thing added to leveled lists.

Bonus points for an easy way to modify stats and slot in a semi-balanced way. It seems everybody and their brother sets Their Cool Thing to be either Ebony or Daedric. Sometimes I just want a good variety of steel weapons.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2014 06:52

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

STEP gives a recommended installation order for mods, which I'm going to assume is okay. Is there a generally recommended installation sequence for mods based on the type of mods? I.e. Should Animations go before anything else? Where should texture replacers fall? What about "mods that add items", or "mods that add factions"?

If the categories STEP uses are reasonable delineations, and things should fall in that order, that would be great.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 02:12

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Go into Settings > Workarounds and set the NMM Version field to 0.47.0.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 03:21

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

See my post a few posts ago. You need to change the NMM Version that MO presents.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 18:08

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

I updated the list slightly. When I have more time I'll add hyperlinks as appropriate. Feel free to check my list. Thanks to everyone who has helped so far.

Pre-requisites:

Install SKSE, Mod Organizer (MO), BOSS, TES5Edit, and Wrye Bash
Setup the last 3 as executabes in MO

Modding Skyrim in 20 Easy Steps:

1. Launch everything through Mod Organizer. Seriously, everything.
2. Load mods into Mod Organizer
3. Select the mods you want to use

SkyUI will complain about not seeing SKSE. It will work fine anyway.

4. Run BOSS

If any mods are unrecognized, add them manually to your BOSS list and re-run BOSS.

5. Use TES5Edit to clean mods marked as dirty by BOSS.

Some mods should remain dirty, and are indicated as such in their documentation.
Does anyone have a good list of common mods where this is true?

6. Organize the mods in the left-hand pane of Mod Organizer in the same priority as BOSS organized the ESPs and ESMs in the right-hand pane
7. Run Wrye Bash
8. Create Bashed Patch
9. Activate Bashed Patch
10. Run TES5Edit
11. Create Merged Patch, removing Levelled Lists)
12. Go into the Overwrite folder, and re-run Wrye Bash
13. Delete the contents of the Overwrite folder
14. Activate Merged Patch
15. Create various proccer patches (e.g. Automatic Variants)

Ensure you run proccers from inside of MO
Using SUM can help do this quickly and reliably

16. Activate various proccer patches
17. Run SKSE_Loader
18. Play Skyrim until you decide to play with mods some more
19. Install ENB
20. In case of savefile bloat, add an .ini file for skse and write ClearInvalidRegistrations=1

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 23:02

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Any chance there's a list of said mods someplace?

(On my phone, otherwise of look.)

# ¿ Feb 8, 2014 03:57

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

When I try to launch Wrye Bash from inside of MO, it presents the splash screen, but never opens the main window. I tried running it from outside of MO just to see if it would launch, and it launches fine. Any ideas on what could cause this?

Edit: I sort of figured it out. I created a new Profile and selected "Default Game Settings". Using that, Wrye Bash launches fine. I don't know what in particular is wrong with my other profiles, but something is.

Ynglaur fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Feb 9, 2014

# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 06:15

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Apologies if this has been posted, but in the "How to Mod Skyrim In a Billion Easy Steps" sequence, should Wrye Bash's bashed patch only have "Leveled Lists" selected. There are a total of 6 options:

Alias Mod Names
Merge Patches
Import Names
Import Stats
Tweak Settings
Leveled Lists

In particular, should Wrye Bash or TES5Edit be used to merge patches to get under the 255 limit?

How to Mod Skyrim In a Billion Easy Steps posted:

Pre-requisites:
Install SKSE, Mod Organizer (MO), BOSS, TES5Edit, and Wrye Bash
Setup the last 3 as executabes in MO

1. Launch everything through Mod Organizer. Seriously, everything.
2. Load mods into Mod Organizer
3. Select the mods you want to use
-- SkyUI will complain about not seeing SKSE. It will work fine anyway.
4. Run BOSS
-- If any mods are unrecognized, add them manually to your BOSS list and re-run BOSS.
5. Use TES5Edit to clean mods marked as dirty by BOSS.
--Some mods should remain dirty, and are indicated as such in their documentation.
--Does anyone have a good list of common mods where this is true?
6. Organize the mods in the left-hand pane of Mod Organizer in the same priority as BOSS organized the ESPs and ESMs in the right-hand pane
7. Run Wrye Bash
8. Create Bashed Patch
9. Activate Bashed Patch
10. Run TES5Edit
11. Create Merged Patch, removing Levelled Lists)
12. Go into the Overwrite folder, and re-run Wrye Bash
13. Delete the contents of the Overwrite folder
14. Activate Merged Patch
15. Create various proccer patches (e.g. Automatic Variants)
-- Ensure you run proccers from inside of MO
-- Using SUM can help do this quickly and reliably
16. Activate various proccer patches
17. Run SKSE_Loader
18. Play Skyrim until you decide to play with mods some more
19. Install ENB
20. In case of savefile bloat, add an .ini file for skse and write ClearInvalidRegistrations=1

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 04:01

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

epitasis posted:

Install the Uncapper
Install SPERG
Go into the SPERG directory of your /mods folder and make sure the DG and DB .esps are in the main data directory and not the optional folder
Go into the SKSE folder in the SPERG directory and find the .ini, copy it
Go into the Uncapper directory of your /mods folder and replace the .ini in that SKSE folder with your copied SPERG .ini file

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but: "How do you do this when you're using Mod Organizer, which isolates mods from each other?"

I'm on 4 hours of sleep, and am hoping the answer isn't hilariously obvious.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 15:33

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

We need the equivalent of BOSS for MO metadata files. Just saying. :colbert:

That said, I have over 1000 mods in the left-hand pane , so my pain is self-inflicted.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2014 04:10

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

I believe MECR is integrated into Immersive Armors.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2014 13:51

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Maybe someone should post somewhere else that Arthmoor reads and, in a simpering tone, present this as a "minor compatibility fix for a problem some users might experience if they use other mods." Basically, say everything except how hosed up the original code is.

Alternately, is it possible to have an Unofficial USKP Patch released that updates this sole script?

# ¿ Feb 17, 2014 17:36

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Does Arthmoor sleep with one of the mods on Nexus or something? Sheesh.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2014 20:08

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

I can't get FNIS (GenerateFNISforUsers.exe) working from inside of Mod Organizer, even when I run Mod Organizer as Administrator. I am able to run FNIS from Windows Explorer normally, but of course it can't see my virtual data directory.

The error message is:
"This application could not be started. Do you want to view information about this issue?"

When I select "Yes", it takes me to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2715633. I enabled .NET 3.5, but still no luck. I'm running Windows 8.1 64-bit.

Edit: I figured it out. I had to have the mod selected in the left-hand pane.

Ynglaur fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Feb 19, 2014

# ¿ Feb 18, 2014 22:49

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Is there any particular reason to use the Categories from Nexus that are setup by default in Mod Organizer? I'm setting up STEP Extended, plus a few other things (ASIS, OBIS, a bunch of new weapons and armors, CoT, ELFX), and few of the STEP categorizations line up nicely with Nexus.

If I'm agonizing over something stupid, I'd like to know that too.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 16:07

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Mr. Crow posted:

Question for modders, how do I check if an actor is "knocked down" when they are marked as essential, GetAV("Health") < 0, or is there some state I need to check?

Also, is there an up-to-date exclusion lists for ASIS somewhere? Never used it before and trying it with a new play through along with SkyRe, and had a bunch of issues that I eventually figured out was incompatibility with ASIS. honestly it doesn't seem worth all the problems I'm going to run into unless there's a good updated list of things to ignore.

For whatever it's worth, here's my current exclusions list.

code:

[ModExclusions]
CMNewCompanions.esm
UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul.esp
WATER - Get Wet.esp
SkyRe - Enemies.esp
SkyTEST-RealisticAnimals&Predators.esp
WARZONES - Civil Unrest.esm
DFB - Random Encounters.esp
Occupy Skyrim.esp
DeadlyDragons.esp
Requiem.esp
quest_andtherealmsofdaedra.esp
quest_nomercy.esp
quest_pitfighter.esp
quest_pitfighter_dlc01.esp
quest_seaofghosts.esp
quest_sorcery.esp
quest_thebiggertheyare.esp
tos_amber_guard.esp
tos_granitehall.esp
tos_laintardale_hf.esp
tos_oakwood_hf.esp

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 18:28

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Two questions:
1. How does Lootification handle mods in lootification.xml that aren't installed? That is, is there any reason not just to have one big lootification.xml for everything? Or does it result in strangeness, such as NPCs swinging their hands thinking they have a sword?
2. When organizing mod installation in MO in the left-hand pane, the guidance has been to "match whatever order BOSS puts things into". Is this true for STEP as well? I.e. should I install STEP mods in the order presented on the STEP website, or in the order BOSS specifies?

# ¿ Mar 2, 2014 00:19

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Does anyone have the Dual Sheathe Redux meshes for Jaysus Swords handy? It's not on the Nexus any more.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2014 05:30

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

The lootification.xml from Agents are a GO! had some incorrect XML syntax. I've corrected it, and uploaded it to http://pastebin.com/8jQCctUc.

What was wrong was that some rows ended as ...type="armor"/>. i corrected these to ...type="armor"></item>.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2014 06:02

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Where do the STEP Core Patch.esp or STEP Extended Patch.esp belong in a load order? (I understand I only need one, and not both).

# ¿ Mar 5, 2014 07:04

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Finally got Skyrim to start, fully modded with STEP Extended plus a bunch of quests, ASIS, Lootification, weapon/armor mods that have both Lootification and DSR entries, SPERG, Hunterborn, RND. I was feeling pretty smug as the cart trundled down the path...and then got a CTD.

Apparently STEP is right that mods should be added slowly, over time.

Back to STEP Extended + SPERG tonight. Let's see if I can get just that running. Someday maybe I'll actually play this game.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2014 17:20

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Scyantific posted:

Bashed and Merged patches need to be kept separate from each other as well as SkyProc patches.

I usually load the merged patch before the bashed patch, mainly because my bashed patch contains the edits I made to the leveled lists.

Order should be
BOSS
Create a Merged Patch
Create a Bashed Patch
Run your SkyProc Patchers

Load Order should be
[Primary Mods]
[Merged Patch]
[Bashed Patch]
[SkyProc Patches]

Ugh, really? I thought it was this:

code:

Pre-requisites:
Install SKSE, Mod Organizer (MO), BOSS, TES5Edit, and Wrye Bash
Setup the last 3 as executabes in MO 

1. Launch everything through Mod Organizer. Seriously, everything.
2. Load mods into Mod Organizer
3. Select the mods you want to use
  -- SkyUI will complain about not seeing SKSE.  It will work fine anyway.
4. Run BOSS
  -- If any mods are unrecognized, add them manually to your BOSS list and re-run BOSS.
5. Use TES5Edit to clean mods marked as dirty by BOSS.
  --Some mods should remain dirty, and are indicated as such in their documentation.
  --Does anyone have a good list of common mods where this is true?
6. Organize the mods in the left-hand pane of Mod Organizer in the same priority as BOSS organized the ESPs and ESMs in the right-hand pane
7. Run Wrye Bash
8. Create Bashed Patch
9. Activate Bashed Patch
10. Run TES5Edit
11. Create Merged Patch, removing Levelled Lists)
12. Go into the Overwrite folder, and re-run Wrye Bash
13. Delete the contents of the Overwrite folder
14. Activate Merged Patch
15. Create various proccer patches (e.g. Automatic Variants)
  -- Ensure you run proccers from inside of MO
  -- Using SUM can help do this quickly and reliably
16. Activate various proccer patches
17. Run SKSE_Loader
18. Play Skyrim until you decide to play with mods some more
19. Install ENB
20. In case of savefile bloat, add an .ini file for skse and write ClearInvalidRegistrations=1

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 03:41

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

How good is Lootification compared to a simple bashed patch? I have STEP Extended + SPERG running stable, so I'm ready to start breaking things again.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2014 01:06

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

Remove the // from before the ESP filename. // signifies comments, and are ignored.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2014 21:50

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

I think XP32 does this.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 01:33

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 02:46

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

NeurosisHead posted:

Is nexus more hosed up than usual right now? I'm trying to download Immersive Armors, which is admittedly huge. Downloading manually just downloads a 0 MB file, and downloading through MO is at 48% after about half an hour.

Seriously Nexus, just charge for the adult content downloads and you'll be loving millionaires.

Better yet: just put them on their own servers.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2014 19:05

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