The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Mod Thread

Nexusmods has been hacked. Only effecting accounts created prior to July 2013, but probably worth changing your password regardless.

Ugh. I wonder when I made my account there.

Thanks for the heads up.

I couldn't think when I created mine, so I just changed it anyway.

Skyrim friends.

Love this game and I'm now playing on a PC and loving it.
I'm confused on how steam workshop and next mod managers integrates.
I have mods I've downloaded via nexus-- quality world map, faskaar, skyrim hd 2k comp,eye full, Sky ui, unofficial patch.

I also have, through steam workshop:
A whole bunch of "better X"(winter hold, inns, etc) mods
Skyrim immersive creatures
High rea texture pack 1,2,3

So, seems like some of the graphics mods are duplicative right?
If so, and I'm using a plasma tv, what mod(s) should I use for the best graphical upgrades?
I would prefer to delete the unnecessary mods to make space on my SSD.

Any must have mods?
Any instrumental music add ones to the awesome music of skyrim?

Also, l installed SKSE and when it loads spthe skyrim ui I get a "skyui error code 1" indicating SKSE is not running. I added skse from steam workshop. I note the game boots to the loader menu and not directly into the game. Any advice?

Thanks!!

Chad

Both Nexus and Steam basically (behind the scenes) put mods into the Data folder of Skyrim, so in that way they're both basically the same. I strongly prefer Nexus because it's easier to put all my mods in 1 place, it's a better tool to manage mods and Steam has a memory/size limit for mods whereas nexus does not.

(also there is a lot of intellectual theft on steam, mods that people stole from nexus and claim as their own thanks to Valves no moderation rule)

If your PC can handle it, I highly recommend trying some ENBs. An ENB will give an overall enahncement to lighting, color, shadow and add effects like better aliasing, blur, DOF, and a bunch more.Here's a video featuring some:

Personally, I really like an ENB called Vividian (not featured in the video) because it strikes the right balance between looking great and performing great for me.

For graphics, there is a (rather complex) guideline called STEP (Skyrim Total Enhancement Project). It's a really super good resource but it is complicated and requires a time investment.

Must have mods for me are:

Immersive Armors - adds TONS of new armors, really great looking ones too and enemies will have them equipped
Immersive Weapons - same as above but for weapons
Achieve That! - adds tons of new achievements and unlocking achievements gives you points you can spend to increase mana/health/stamina/carry limit. It's not an overpowered mod, the increases are minor but helpful
Cloaks of Skyrim - adds tons of cloaks
Forgotten Magic Redone - adds a bunch of new spells and these spells gain XP themselves. As a spell levels up you can spend points to enhance it by adding new effects, range, aoe, etc
Xtended Loot - very nice mod that adds tons of new magic items that enemies will have equipped and use against you.
UFO - (unlimited follower overhaul) lets you have more than 1 follower
Immerisive Creatures - adds tons of new creatures and variants on existing ones
SkyTest - terrible name but it does for animals what Immersive Creatures does for creatures. Adds more animals, makes animals smarter and travel in packs (herds of deer, packs of wolves, etc)
Wearable Lanterns - adds lanterns that you can clip to a belt
OBIS (organized bandits in skyrim) - adds MUCH more details to bandits. Adds multiple new bandit types and overhauls bandit camps. Really nice mod

Some modding advice:

1. Try to only add and activate a few at a time and test your game to make sure there are no conflicts.
2. Always read the installation notes and look for required files
3. Always check optional files on the file page where you download the mod. It may have compatibility patches so it works with other mods

A lot of people are intimidated by the complexity of modding but it's really not that bad. Just follow the advice above and you should be fine.

Here's some screenshots from my modded game

IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/470924091434402842/EE1124E780106B46CBCFEA684A11DA3B1E52CCE4/)

IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/470924091434323723/6ABC3273DB5AEDA00389FEB79BACE1444DA2148F/)

IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/486680824663911698/76D103FED8417472581544DCFF2AB40944B34776/)

Awesome advice and I will add those mods and try out ebn. I'm not sure I have time in the immediate future for STEP but will try someday.
If I use nexus mods, what overall upgrade mod(s) would you recommend to increase the graphics. HD 2 pack? Something else? I am playing on a plasma tv so that may limit the resolution. I'd love for my game to look like your screenshots.

I may delete all the mods I currently have (20) and start over with mods. I've read my SKSE problem may be eliminated if I install that first?

Thanks,

Chad

There's a such a crazy plethora of graphics mods it's hard to say but here's a few:

Official Bethesda HD packs - this may already be automatically loaded but I'm not sure. Check steam under DLC
aMidianBorn is a series of good graphics mods
Skyrim Flora Overhaul is great, pretty much everyone uses it
Tamriel Reloaded HD
Realistic Water Two
Climates of Tamriel - adds lots of weather effects

Also I forgot one of the best mods in my previous post and that's SkyUI. A must have interfance replacer and also adds an in-game mod configuration menu that lets tweak multiple mod settings in-game

Forgot another set of mods too, custom Followers. These are fully voiced and will comment on what's happening as you play so their best grabbed early

Inigo - a khajit thief
Vilja - a nice lore friendly one with lots of voice acting/commentary
Cerwiden - not lore friendly but lots of voice acting and a good healer
Arissa - female imperial thief also with lots of voice work

I liked Vilja a lot even though her voice got on my nerves sometimes. She comments a lot, has a long custom quest line, and if you have more than 1 follower, she'll engage in conversation with them similar to followers in Dragon Age

Your "skyui error code 1" problem may be due to running it out of C:\Program Files\Steam. Usually that indicates a Windows permission problem. If you have Steam in C:\Program Files you may want to consider moving it out of there to another place on your drive. SKSE tries to write a log file where it is run and that is a no-no for apps running in C:\Program Files. Alternatively, you can try running as administrator.

Also, welcome to the wonderful world of Skyrim modding, the game within the game! Here are a could of screenshots from my current project:

IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/543050193610406063/9D2B4FA88CC963454D0C660658FE842BE62EE506/)

IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/543050193610405953/6E48F967B0C0DE9EF7AC13243EABD32C0858614A/)

IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/543050193610405769/1F29E57561A5548CB7A029F9C8698E4083BD2788/)

This setup has 268 mods, some of which I have combined since Skyrim can only have a max of 255 mods. To be honest, I spend way more time modding than I spend playing the game these days.

Edit: Forgot the most important thing!
For serious modding, I recommend using Mod Organizer instead of Nexus Mod Manager (and Steam Workshop is right out!). Mod Organizer does not write files to the Skyrim data directory, instead it stores the mods in a directory completely outside of Skyrim and combines the mods when you run Skyrim. The downside is that you have to run Skyrim (or SKSE) from within Mod Organizer, as small price to pay to be able to easily enable and disable mods, combine mods, remove parts of mods, run other tools easily on your mods, etc. It is the best tool for managing mods out there, in my opinion, and I have used them all.

RooksGambit wrote:

Climates of Tamriel - adds lots of weather effects
Cerwiden - not lore friendly but lots of voice acting and a good healer

+1 to both of these, though I wouldn't bother with Cerwiden's quest, especially if you've got the difficulty cranked up, and her endless prattling about Lord Donblas can get tiresome. Nice to have a restoration-specialized follower though.

RooksGambit wrote:

Also I forgot one of the best mods in my previous post and that's SkyUI. A must have interfance replacer and also adds an in-game mod configuration menu that lets tweak multiple mod settings in-game

+ so many 1s to this. This is the most essential mod, along with the unofficial patches. I also recommend autosave manager to save yourself a lot of time when you die and haven't pushed F5 in a while. It's especially useful if your modded Skyrim tends to crash every once in a while. I also consider better dialogue controls and some sort of mod to remove the clouds and add the roads to the map to be essential quality of life upgrades. It changes balance a bit, but I'm a big fan of acquisitive soul gems too, as I hated micromanaging my soul trapping and preferred to take care of it with a soul-trap-enchanted weapon. I could list mods all day, but if you're looking for a list of quality gameplay-focused (rather than graphics focused) mods to browse through G.E.M.S. has a nice list.

tboon wrote:

For serious modding, I recommend using Mod Organizer instead of Nexus Mod Manager (and Steam Workshop is right out!).

+1 to Mod Organizer. I find it to be superior to the other options in pretty much every way.

And you're probably aware of this, but make sure you're launching Skyrim using the SKSE executable instead of the Skyrim executable or it won't actually load in correctly.

Yeah I was about to say to use Mod Organizer. I love the fact that it leaves your actual Skyrim Data folder nice and clean, that way, if you want to try a different modding path in future, you don't have to delete everything and reinstall.

I'm starting to get the itch to play Skyrim again, but just haven't found the time as yet. I think I will be starting a new modding process from scratch, as no doubt much has changed since I last went through it. Thank goodness for S.T.E.P. Will also check out G.E.M.S, haven't seen that list before.

NMM allows you to store the mod on a different folder if SSd space is at a premium.

ENBs do look nice but if it pushes your pc too far then PURITYhere is a good enb lite like graphics overhaul.

I just starting using the 1k version of Renthal HD Flora all in
Really adds to the game.

I would also put in on of the many combat mods- ultimate/deadly/duel.
I think I am using Deadly now, because I dont like fights that go on too long.
and an enemy AI changer like Revenge Of the Enemies 2016 http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods...?

One thing I'll chime in to say is to be careful with mods like UFO that allow you to have more than one follower. It can be fun to roll posse deep (I've even done so in vanilla by abusing things like Baranabas and Serana who don't count toward your follower count), but it can also make combat trivial when things tend to die before you have a clear idea what's attacking you and from where.

I always found that having more than 2 followers was more of a pain than a help. Sometimes I'd roll with 3 but mostly 2 because anymore than that and they just get in the way, literally. It also made the game too easy and I still wanted some level of challenge so 2 with a bump up in difficulty is my sweet spot.

Also agree about Mod Organizer although for a newcomer I would highly recommend they start with Nexus. It's just easier, with no fuss. Even though I've used Organizer extensively, for my last play through I used Nexus because I wanted simplicity and everything worked just fine.

Here's the last category I didn't include in my recommended mod list. It's quest mods. These are great, especially if you've played through a few times and want a new experience. They're usually fully voiced, with great writing and well balanced.

omni wrote:

I'm starting to get the itch to play Skyrim again, but just haven't found the time as yet. I think I will be starting a new modding process from scratch, as no doubt much has changed since I last went through it. Thank goodness for S.T.E.P. Will also check out G.E.M.S, haven't seen that list before.

This is a great time to jump back in. Thanks to Fallout 4, a lot of the old modders are getting back into the modding game and updating their Skyrim mods. I found more freshly updated mods in the last month than I did in the last year.

^^ I'll chime in for #9 on that list, Moon and Star. Most of the voice acting in the fully-voiced mods is at least a little uneven, but because the creator of Moon and Star (a friend of mine named Marc "GanXingba" Soskin) pals around in semi-pro voice acting circles, the voice acting in his mod is top-notch. It also adds a neat little village to a previously empty area and tells a cool story with lots of callbacks to Morrowind.

I'd skip Undeath though; it was never really 100% finished and is no longer being updated; I had to abuse the console in order to get through a couple of bugged sections. It's a cool idea that had a lot of potential, but it's pretty half-baked.

I really enjoyed DARKEND quest mod. Had a great dark souls vibe. Very light on voice acting/actual quests. More environmental story telling and a creepy vibe.

Installed many of the mods above.
Thinking about trying ENB mods. Looks like I install a base program to take advantage of those mods?

If possible, can anyone clarify whether having the official HD texture upgrade and the upgraded 4K HD pack is redundant? The "enhanced" whiterun (etc) appears to be a supplement to the HD packs in that it adds to the towns?

Thanks!

Chad

I think, in general, the unofficial texture packs usually start with the official HD packs and then provide further tweaks from there.

If you follow STEP or GEMS or whatever, they'll give you a mod install order, which usually has the official packs first, and then overwrites additionally modified files from the unofficial packs afterwards.

I'll also throw another voice out there suggesting Mod Organizer. When you register mods with it, they each get their own folder for unpacking their files, and then MO deals with injecting them into your data folder at run-time. So your Skyrim install remains 100% clean and pristine, and then MO lays in your mod files on demand.

Following up on installing mods on a separate drive, will it slow the game down if the main game is running off the SSD and the mods a regular hard drive? Noticeable slowdown is the concern. I am running out of room on my SSD thanks to these awesome mods.

Also, so the official and unofficial mods texture packs work together (stack) so you would never choose one or the other but use both?

Thanks,

Chad

chooka1 wrote:

Following up on installing mods on a separate drive, will it slow the game down if the main game is running off the SSD and the mods a regular hard drive? Noticeable slowdown is the concern. I am running out of room on my SSD thanks to these awesome mods.

You might notice the game loading slower and there is the possibility of some stutter when new textures get loaded off the slower hard drive, but nothing to really worry all that much about, in my opinion. Although, running everything off an SSD is the ideal scenario if you can swing it.

chooka1 wrote:

Also, so the official and unofficial mods texture packs work together (stack) so you would never choose one or the other but use both?

Yes, use both. But, load order *does* matter - always load the official stuff before anything else. To simplify somewhat, mods modify the existing structure of the game (hence the name) and depend on there being an existing structure there to mod. The official texture packs modify the base game, replacing some of the base textures, etc. to be of higher resolution and unofficial mods will replace some of the textures from either the base game or the altered content loaded from the official texture packs (again, this is simplifying things somewhat, but basically how it works).

tboon wrote:
chooka1 wrote:

Following up on installing mods on a separate drive, will it slow the game down if the main game is running off the SSD and the mods a regular hard drive? Noticeable slowdown is the concern. I am running out of room on my SSD thanks to these awesome mods.

You might notice the game loading slower and there is the possibility of some stutter when new textures get loaded off the slower hard drive, but nothing to really worry all that much about, in my opinion. Although, running everything off an SSD is the ideal scenario if you can swing it.

chooka1 wrote:

Also, so the official and unofficial mods texture packs work together (stack) so you would never choose one or the other but use both?

Yes, use both. But, load order *does* matter - always load the official stuff before anything else. To simplify somewhat, mods modify the existing structure of the game (hence the name) and depend on there being an existing structure there to mod. The official texture packs modify the base game, replacing some of the base textures, etc. to be of higher resolution and unofficial mods will replace some of the textures from either the base game or the altered content loaded from the official texture packs (again, this is simplifying things somewhat, but basically how it works).

Thank you. Very helpful! ENB attempt next.

tboon, what mod is giving you the Day/Night cycle in the HUD? Is it SkyUI?

Also, are the eat/drink/sleep icons an upgrade to More Complex Needs or is it another mod?

I haven't played Skyrim in a while now, but I'm starting to get the itch again!

PaladinTom wrote:

tboon, what mod is giving you the Day/Night cycle in the HUD? Is it SkyUI?

Also, are the eat/drink/sleep icons an upgrade to More Complex Needs or is it another mod?

I haven't played Skyrim in a while now, but I'm starting to get the itch again!

I'll let tboon confirm because it's always possible the mod author combined a few old mods into 1 new one but I'm 90% sure it's A Matter of Time

PaladinTom wrote:

tboon, what mod is giving you the Day/Night cycle in the HUD? Is it SkyUI?

RooksGambit wrote:

I'll let tboon confirm because it's always possible the mod author combined a few old mods into 1 new one but I'm 90% sure it's A Matter of Time

RooksGambit has it, it is A Matter of Time.

PaladinTom wrote:

Also, are the eat/drink/sleep icons an upgrade to More Complex Needs or is it another mod?

That one is iNeed.

For this build, as far as immersion mods, I am running:
Bathing in Skyrim -

Over time, your character will become visually more filthy and you will receive a penalty to your Speechcraft and disease resistance. If you become exceptionally filthy, you will also receive a penalty to Sneak as enemies smell you coming. To avoid these penalties, you will need to bathe yourself regularly. Staying clean also awards small bonuses depending on what type of soap you use.

Campfire - Adds more immersive camping options and equipment. Base camping mode for Frostfall.
Frostfall - Adds hypothermia, cold water survival, and camping. Make traveling more challenging and strategic.
iNeed - A pretty straightforward and easy to use sleep/eat/drink mod.
Real Shelter - Prevents precipitation from passing through overhead cover. If you use Frostfall you really need this too, otherwise you will almost always be wet and cold and probably dead.

PaladinTom wrote:

I haven't played Skyrim in a while now, but I'm starting to get the itch again!

Awesome!

I REALLY need to unfavorite this thread at some point.

Everytime it get a resurgence I find myself browsing through STEP changelogs.

Played through the Falskaar add on quest. Pretty good.

I transferred over my. 360 save and two problems.
First, black market power from Dragonborn is not working.
Second, the Kinect commands (e.g "armor") are in front of some of the spells but the spells work. Any way to clean up the Kinect words?

Thanks!

Chad