godescalcus

Oh I've tried Phoenix with Reshade (I think) before, which looked very nice indeed, but I don't remember its impact on performace. This build is performing very well in my ageing gtx970, i7-5870k system. Usually upwards of 50FPS even in cities, capped at 58 most of the time in the wilderness. Should I try a different ENB first, or try the weathers without true storms? Because TS does change rain drop and volumetric fog texture which are exactly the ones that look dark grey in stormy weathers my build. It does look like incompatibility with some shaders or something. The night brightess with moons makes sense with clear skyes (though a bit too bright in my opinion) and it could be that the ENB fails do adjust to cloudy skyes, I don't even know if SSE enb's can do that.

It seems like the excessive night brightness issue is related with stormy weathers, clear weather looks fine. Also during daytime, rainy/stormy weathers make water foam textures dark grey, maybe incompatibility with realistic water two?

Is it unavoidable SE behaviour to have nights as bright as day if merely one of the moons is up, or is some bad configuration of the ENB/weather/lighting mods? I did exactly as it says in the guide and at night, with rain and all, I can see almost as if it were day, only the color palette seems more blueish and less saturated. The fact that there are clouds doesn't make any difference. Only when both moons set do I get a more realistic dark night. Have you tried Vivid Weathers + Re-Engaged without True Storms? Maybe the compatibility isn't as straightforward as it seemed.

I forgot to mention this, I do use the alternative add-on instead of the one in the guide. Straightforward replacement and it can be merged with the rest of the patches. Also note in my previous post (spoiler list) the PCE - Legacy of the Dragonborn Patch.esp that is provided by Legacy's patch installer. As for faction crossbows, I suppose it would be easy to make a patch to place the book somewhere else but I don't really care and if I do need the manual, I think I'll just use "console magic".

I use it, without flaws so far, but it's not a straightforward process to install and make work. I do still consider it a work in progress. Here's what I recommend: 1 - Read Sette's description page and the compatibility article thoroughly. You probably already did as you pasted a relevant excerpt but read the inconspicuous first couple of paragraphs at the top of the description page, as they'll help you troubleshoot problems later. In particular, it's critical that you don't load PCE onto an existing savegame. Always start a new game after installing PCE, otherwise you'll get misplaced objects that you'll never find any other reason for. If you do this, and the following, you should be ok. 2 - Load order. I set a couple of rules in LOOT to load Palaces and Castles Enhanced.esp after Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul.esp and after Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp. You should verify this against your specific load order and see if there's anything else that needs to be overridden. 3 - Patches. I ported from classic skyrim's PCE Community Patches the patches for SFCO, Skyrim Unique Treasures, Bad Gremlins' Something Fishy and Royal Armoury. Most work out of the box after conversion (usual NIF opt, convert esp in CK procedure) but Bad Gremlins' also had to be made compatible with the merged esp that we use in this list. I redirected the master in Wrye Bash from the original (missing) esp to BGCollectables.esp and verified in xEdit for broken records. I don't remember if I had any but if you do find broken records, I suggest this: fetch the original Something Fishy esp, load it in xEdit with BGCollectables.esp and the already changed PCE patch. Check the patch for errors. Compare the broken records with corresponding records in Something Fishy.esp (change the first two digits of the broken formid to match the index for Something Fishy in that xEdit session, type that in the top left rectangle in xEdit (formID) and search, it should find something. Take note of the record id (sort of "title" that displays after the id) and find the corresponding record in BGCollectables.esp. Copy that record's id and replace the broken record in the patch esp. Do this for all broken records, exit only saving PCE - BGSF.esp (the patch). As I said, don't remember if I had to do all this but it a generic procedure for when you have to restore compatibility with, for example, an updated mod that changed stuff. Verify all ported patches 3a - Other patches: download and install all the relevant patches available in the SSE Palaces and Castles Enhanced Page. The patch for ICAIO is for the previous version 0.3.9a and it shows a few broken records when used with the current version 0.4a. These are deleted AI packages that the previous version had already tagged for deletion. My take was to remove each of these in the patch, which show as missing/broken records. Load the patch in xEdit, check for errors, go to the forms that show errors and remove only the broken references in each one. Save and exit. 4 - Merge patches. There are three patch files that contain navmesh edits. If you add all three to the same merge, you'll have broken navmesh. So I merged everything except the Skyrim Sewers and the USSEP + CRF patches. If you read Sette's spoiler on the first sticky comment, about patch load order, you'll understand why those two and not the PCE - Immersive Citizens patch which also contains navmesh. If you merge one esp containing navmesh with others that don't contain navmesh, you're ok. I set a few rules in loot: PCE Skyrim Sewers patch load after PCE - USSEP + CRF patch and PCE Patches Merged (my merge) load after PCE Skyrim Sewers patch. That way you preserve Sette's load order for patches. 5 - Even before merging, you'll want to tour all the palaces and look for misplaced stuff. I only found one floating painting in the Blue Palace, put there by Snazzy Furniture and Clutter, so I checked its reference id ingame with the console, loaded PCE - SFCO patch.esp in xEdit, looked up the reference id in the MASTER Snazzy Furniture and Clutter Overhaul.esp, copied it as overwrite into the patch, flagged it "initially disabled" and changed the z position to -30000.000000. Do this for any other misplaced objects if you thing they aren't needed. If they're important, you may also change their position without disabling them, but that is really a drag to do in xEdit and I don't bother doing it in the CK. Haven't found any, after loading all the patches. After you think you got them all, merge the patches. Here's my merged plugin list: As I said, this works flawlessly and the combination of Palaces and Castles, ICAIO and 3DNPC's is amazing. Palaces look really lively now. But I do consider it a work in progress as I haven't had time to test it extensively in a playthrough for other conflicts. You can always tweak things. One thing I did was to make its interior cells compatible with ELE. They should be compatible with ELFX via patch, but ELE loads towards last in my load order so its cell definitions override PCE's. I have a personal CR plugin for custom edits and I set it to carry ELE's lighting and imagespaces and PCE's palace music. This is a minor detail, you can perfectly well do without PCE music, I don't even notice the difference, but you can do the same procedure for any conflicts you find.

I've had weird problems with MO2 not seeing the load order (in my case, it was LOOT) and sometimes being unable to fire the virtual file system (error: usvfs_proxy_x64.exe and usvfs_proxy_x86.exe failed to launch, or something similar). On another case it completely lost track of my left pane order (but that was easy to fix for me because I always index my mod folder names so they even order correctly by alphanumeric order). I'm still not sure FNIS runs 100% well (I've just seen a husky sliding back instead of running back, but it was an isolated incident). In most instances I solved the problem by closing MO2 and restarting. May have restarted Windows, too, don't remember. MO2 doesn't seem rock solid at the moment, but eventually it gets the work done ;)

Happens to me too :) When I think it's finally time to play, troubleshooting begins. That second image seems to indicate missing fog/cloud textures? Do reinstall your weather mods from scratch. Did you do the Weather Systems merge? If so, did you tell it to batch-copy all assets, or not? If not (as is my case), did you leave the original mods ticked in the left pane? Because those will contain all the needed assets and if you untick them you'll have missing meshes and textures. Missing meshes will likely cause you to CTD on the spot, missing textures will take that purple look. My procedure for all merges was to NOT copy all assets into the merge directory (untick the option in Merge Plugins Standalone - it still copies assets that need to be renamed in order to work with the merge). After the merge is finished, placed in the left pane according to the guide and activated, I go through all of the original mods and move only the merged plugins into the optional plugins tab. That way the merged plugin will have all the needed assets in MO2's virtual file system, provided by the original mods. It doesn't matter at all that they come from other mods, as long as they're installed.

Just wanted to correct my previous post, I meant the ENB itself should NOT be the source of a missing texture (typo... but I had already said that and you got the point).

you CAN avoid them, just follow the procedures described at the bottom of the guide to add dummy masters with Wrye Bash, then load the CR plugins in xEdit, check for errors, delete broken records (be careful here, it's usually a better idea to remove the entire form and the forms it's nested into but it may not always be the case), then try to remove the dummy master (right click the CR plugin, remove master). If it doesn't get removed after you corrected all broken records, use the "report masters" procedure described and remove any references to the dummy master, then it should allow you to remove it. Save and close, delete the dummy esp. This usually works but from my experience it's prone to error, as is any editing you carry out in xEdit so if you don't mind having them, best to leave the CR alone. And don't forget, if you choose to leave mods behind and edit the CR, you'll have to do it again every time you replace the CR by an updated version. I don't think the ENB has rain textures (it gets installed directly into the game folder, not in Data via MO2). That does seem like a missing/broken texture and I'd point to the weather mods, either Vivid or True Storms. My own rain looks pretty dark, I'd say too dark compared with the classic Skyrim version, but not entirely out of place. The ENB can change the appearance of rain, but it should be the source of a missing texture.

I use the books glow but it's not entirely necessary, as one of the Heads Up Display mods also marks unread books (in a more inconspicuous way, it merely adds an asterisk before/after the book's title in the inventory. More immersive and since those mods do other stuff, makes the glow redundant. Simply Knock has beed reported to cause trouble, not only with this build, but I'm using it just the same and so is Gopher on his youtube playthrough. The speed fix is probably also unnecessary if you use Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul. Both mods don't do the same, but I'm also going for the more immersive travel system this time. Any mods that you add to this guide will need their own conflict resolving. Test run them and also load them and your full load order in xEdit and screen them for which records get overridden by other mods, and which are overriding. For all conflicts you have to decide what you want to be carried into the game. Make a patch to combine records from different mods in the same form.

Great build! Just got wasted in my first encounter with smugglers LOL This thing seems so stable I now forget to save once in a while... Lost my whole morning's adventuring ehehe

What the heck is this? If I let windows defender quarantine it or delete it might I not have a problem with missing assets causing CTDs or something? Since when can a wav file contain executable material anyway?

I've always found heads in glass jars, fairies, fish bowls and the like were kind of lore unfriendly... Not that they ever broke my immersion LOL Nor did the bright pink and green shells I keep finging by the sea, for that matter!

There you go! If you go to Robton's page for classic Skyrim's TMB Vanilla Armors and Clothes (https://robton.nu/vanilla-armors-and-clothes-tmb/) you'll read "this requires an TBBP/HDT Compatible skeleton like XP32 Maximum Skeleton Extended (which I recommend using anyways)". I can't be sure since I'm not using that replacer (instead I use Caliente and Ousinus' bodyslide with UUNP sliders from classic and sliders for all armor sets in this guide, so I always get them all coherent) but I'd wager the SSE version that Lexy linked in the guide also needs the SE version of XPMSE. So if you install that, you should be ok. Does that mean if we select the full version Legacy won't have displays for anything, or just not for the items that are not in the immersive version? I'm leaning towards the second possibility, because for what I know Legacy detects the mod by its plugins being present in the load order. If that's so, then we'll simply have extra shiny to make pretty the rest of the Dragonborn real estate ;)

I've had consistent CTDs after finishing installation and they are a drag to troubleshoot. I've learned to be more careful with adding mods that aren't in the guide. I got one (Silian Manor, just outside Solitude) that looks great but has a huge amount of dirty/wild edits, changing both interior and exterior cells as far as Riften, including lots of deleted navmeshes. Tried to clean it manually but still testing, maybe the best will be to let it go. In general, I consider that the mods supported by Legacy are safe to use, but the whole lot hasn't been conflict resolved for use with this guide, so you're still in unchartered territory. My last troubleshooting run took me half a day unchecking and rechecking mods in MO2 until I isolated the NPC retextures section. I had done exactly as the guide says there, so I just tried to reinstall the whole section and it worked, no more CTD's on char generation or when entering Solitude. Go figure! My 2c. is, copy your profile to a new one and start unchecking mods in batches until you no longer CTD. Then recheck fewer at a time, until you get your CTD again... That way you can narrow down on the culprit and see what needs to be done, whether extra conflict resolving, load order change, reinstalling to account for corrupt/missing assets or leave the mod out altogether... Check the conflicts tab to investigate the possibility of another mod overriding assets from that one, potentially causing the crash. It's a drag, especially after days of building, but sometimes it's the only way.

I really don't know, maybe Moonlight Tales or other combat mods?

I did recall, since, that some mode require to be loaded at start to work properly, Legacy being one of them. So the best course, so far, seems to be to let the engine chew up the starters before doing anything (even configuring the MCM). Oh, well, yesterday I did just that and took the time to make all the suggested configurations, then started a playthrough and have done nothing but troubleshooting and conflict resolving since LOL. And I thought I'd save and keep that character so I never had to do the config again. Regarding the timescale, I really don't know. Between what the scripts are expecting and giving them more time to run (by lowering the timescale, shouldn't they fire in a slower pace?), I don't know what's best.

Lexy, where do we stand on using The Great Equalizer script with SSE? I read your comments there and used your method of deleting the lute record before running TGE, then saving only the TGE plugin on exit. Tested it on my favourite OP piece of equipent (NOT!), the Dwemer Power Armor from Aetherium Weapons and Armor. It seems to work at first look. Have you had any issues since? I still think that set of equipment (aetherium) is overpowered beyond cheating, because of all the enchantments every piece gets... Maybe it (and eventually a few more items) could get a more aggressive nerfing in the CR, like removing enchantments (or editing the enchantments themselves, which are specific to that mod). A bit of "micromanagement" but it does get to a point in the game where it just doesn't make sense to wear any other equipment...

Deleted.

Tiny detail in the CR: if you're using Palaces and Castles Enhanced with this mod build, there's an edit in the CR to the Blue Palace Dome that should be fixing the lighting from ELFX after some Snazzy patch had it messed up - records 0006F925, 0006F92A, 0006F92B and 0006F92C. Unfortunately, these records reposition the dome at its original location and undo the changes made by PCE, resulting in the palace ceiling being disrupted where the dome should be. Setting up a rule in LOOT to place PCE below the CR could work, but I don't like the idea of moving whole plugins around to correct a minor detail such as this, so my approach was to copy only those records from the Lexy's CR as overwrites to a new custom CR plugin, and fix the position of the dome by carrying the x, y, and z values from Palaces and Castles Enhanced.esp. This also avoids editing Lexy's CR itself, which would have the disadvantage of having to redo any changes made to it when updating. A custom CR will most likely be needed in any build that makes changes to the guide.

What are your opinions regarding the following: - could changing the timescale to 15 interfere with vanilla or modded scripts/quests? - when you start your character with the full mod list, the load of scripts all firing up at the same time is quite heavy. What's the safest approach to avoid screwing up from the beginning: a) start the game normally with the full load order, create character, stay in the abandoned prison (AS-LAL) and do nothing untill notifications stop and only then approach Mara's statue and begin the game normally; b) start the game with another profile loading only AS-LAL and its requirements (if any), create character, wait a while and do not approach Mara, save, quit, start game with the full modded load order, load game and proceed as in a) (the idea here being to allow any scripts that the game always has to fire at startup to run first, then allow the mods' scripts to run when the script load is lower). c) your suggestion? - certain scenes are pretty script heavy, like the first approach to Whiterun, Riverwood or first time entering Solitude. How long should you let the game run at startup, as a precaution to lighten the script load before approaching any known heavily scripted scene? Sometimes after a few minutes I still get messages saying "x" mod was initialized, or that "n" new menus were added to the MCM. I get the feeling that letting some time pass before doing anything allows this initial sequence to stream better.

I'm confused with the WICO instructions: I run the fomod, then replace the bsa with the stripped one, as instructed. To be able to have it replace the original, I need to NOT extract the bsa's when running the fomod. Then, after replacing the bsa, I proceed to delete the files listed, and end up with a mod containing three bsa archives (WICO - Immersive Character.bsa, WICO - Immersive Dawnguard.bsa and WICO - Immersive People.bsa), apart from MO2's meta.ini. What should I do, then? Proceed to extract all three bsa's manually? Otherwise, they won't be noticed by the game, not without their esp's.

I too have the feeling that my game performance improved after finishing the merges section, not sure why. The full guide, which I've just finished, performs way better than any of my intermediate tests, especially when DynDOLOD is added.

That prisoner clothes actually rang a bell! It's here: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/4jnn5e/strange_neck_seams_on_prisoner_rags_anyone_know/ It's caused by Forgotten City. Gosh, why don't modders learn NOT to edit general game assets (but use their own instead)? I take that as akin to a dirty edit. The second solution in the comments thread is the one I used, fixes the prisoner rags but lets you keep the modded ones on the corresponding NPC - meaning it makes the mod as it always should have been. Copying it here: In TES5Edit:1- Right click the PrisonerRagsAA in Forgotten City, and choose Copy as New Record into Forgotten City (give it a name like 000FCZombieRagsAA).2- Right click the PrisonerRagsAA in Forgotten City and select "Remove" (agree to the warning prompt).3- Find the 000FCZombieRags armor in Forgotten City - right click its Armature value and select "Edit", then change it from PrisonerRagsAA to the new 000FCZombieRagsAA (you will have to use the new armor addon's FormID).4- Close TES5Edit and save the changes. Credit to Velgus at reddit. Just checked and it seems the SE version of Forgotten City already has this problem corrected, so that should be another issue. Sorry!

Two remarks regarding the Bashed Patch. zPatch.esp seems to be mergeable into the Bashed Patch. Haven't tested it yet (by running into a Kajiit in stormy weather?) but if nothing breaks, their order in the guide could be switched for one less plugin hanging around. And about the timescale, I noticed it was changed to 15 from 10 (or 12, I don't remember exactly) in the classic guide, why was that? Why not just leave it at default (20) since most (if not all) scripted actions expect that? Not that I don't enjoy longer days (and nights, for the shady businesses), but anything that helps a heavily modded game to run is a good thing, isn't it? Edit: zPatch merges into the bashed patch but then the bashed patch is asking for it as master. Strange, better leave it out, then.