SpiritWolf448

Thank you. Much obliged. :-)

Can the currently published STEP guide (v2.3) be followed as written, or does one need to be aware of any additional tripwires or changes that have surfaced since its release about a year ago that are not reflected in the guide?

Don't need a flamesuit here, I think. Generally speaking, you picked a relatively bad time for modding Skyrim SE/AE, at least in my opinion. The 1130 update f****d Skyrim sideways, and not all mods in need of an update have been updated yet. Plus, there is supposed to be another patch to fix some of the bugs Bethesda introduced with 1130, but no one knows exactly when that next patch will drop. Doesn't really help to foster confidence in the remaining modders to update their mods when another patch could drop any minute (or in a few months time, nobody knows). Also, the GoG version is on another release channel, if I recall correctly. I am actually unsure how compatible the STEP guide (or the mods it makes use of) is with the GoG version, as I, like most, own Skyrim on Steam. Suffice to say that all guides I know of, inculding the STEP guide, are not up-to-date and need revisions to account for the new update Bethesda forced on us. And since they changed not only the runtime, but also the header format of the .esl plugins to allow for more entries in them (if interested, read it up on the xEdit Discord, if I am not mistaken), it must also be kept in mind that not only runtime mods with .dlls require an update, but that mods saved wit hthe new version 1.71 of the plugin header will be incompatible with older versions of Skyrim SE/AE. I think I remember that there is a mod supposed to backport the compatibilty for the new plugin header, but am currently unsure where you would find that one. Sorry. Personally, if you are going to make your own compatibility patches with xEdit anyways, I'd likely use the newest available guide, in this case 2.2.0, and just carefully mod everything out you don't want. Mind you, it will me quite some work. But hey, modding *is* the game, right? Dislcaimer: this entire wall of text obviously only represents my own, very limited view on things. I welcome any hints, additions, corrections, bribes etc. others may be able to provide. EDIT: You may find the following post from Reddit informative -> Updated Information About The New Skyrim Update

Thanks for the reply. :-) I'll start then. Just wanted to make sure I don't run headlong into a "Had you only waited a few more days..." scenario. ^_^"

If I plan to start using the guide now for a completely new install, should I wait for it or is the next version of the guide still far out?

Thank you very much, @Mercury71. I appreciate you taking your time to answer.

Top of the morning, lads and lasses. Quick (maybe stupid) question. Is the current STEP guide 2.2.0 for Skyrim AE from january of this year still considered up-to-date as-is or are there any post-release changes or trip-ups one needs to be aware of when doing a completely new install? I mean, much can happen in 10 month, so I figured i'd better ask first. Cheerio!

As usual, time will tell.

Dunno. Have been using MO 1 for Skyrim for over a year now, so I am no recent convert, I am afraid. ^_^" As for endangered species... do I take that as a small hint of realism on your part in regards to the future of mod managers, now that Tannin has stopped working on MO2? :p (Personally, as written elsewhere, I wish Tannin all the best, but will remain skeptical of what the planned "new" NMM will actually become until I can test it myself and confirm that the nice MO/MO2 features have safely made the transition.)

It seems I have solved it now. *preliminary happy dance* As it looks, Fallout 4 does not like windows symlinks. Explanation: I have Steam installed on my game SSD, N:\Steam. MO2 is also installed on that drive. N:\ModOrganizer2B3 (with N:\ModOrganizer2Data being the place where the profiles etc are, as per your instructions). I had moved Fallout 4 from "N:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Fallout 4" to just "N:\Fallout 4" and created a symlink (mklink /J) from that back to the original Steam location. The Mod Organizer 2 ini file (ModOrganizer.ini) had this in it: [General] gameName=Fallout 4 gamePath=N:\\Steam\\SteamApps\\common\\Fallout 4I changed that now to [General] gameName=Fallout 4 gamePath=N:\\Fallout 4thus circumventing the symlink and pointing MO2 at the actual place of Fallout 4. And now, it seems the plugins are read by the game correctly. ^_^" So, while LOOT, Bodyslide etc. don't mind symlinks, Fallout 4 itself seems to be way more picky. Summary: It was user error to an extent. Repointing the MO2 ini to the actual place of F4 instead of the symlinked one fixed the issue of the game not seeing mod plugins. My apologies ot have taken up your time with this, Gernash. And a big fat "Thank you" for trying to help. :-) It is most appreciated.

I honestly wonder why it works for some people, and not for others... *puzzled*

@Gernash Thank you for this guide/list of suggestions on what mods to use. It certainly is helpful. Now, I do have a bit of a problem. I posted this on other places already, but so far no solution could be found. My MO2 (set up just like you suggested in your guide) seems to have trouble with making mods visible to the game. Fresh FO4 install, fresh MO2 install, set up as in your guide. Using FO4Edit, LOOT or Bodyslide (x64) through MO2 works like a charm, no problems at all. But when I start up the game (via F4SE, of course, which was auto-detected by MO2), the game does not load the installed mods correctly. Loose files (and files from .ba2 archives, as far as I can tell) are loaded, but all plugins (.esm/.esp) are completely ignored. The ingame Mod menu only shows "No content found". The file "plugins.txt" located at C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Local\Fallout4 was empty, btw. I copied over the one MO2 generates in its Profiles folder, but that did not help any. Do you have any suggestion or idea what I might try to get FO4 to actually load all mods completely?