godescalcus

I've seen that, the guy seems pretty hyperactive lately ;) But I'd go for locations after trying to fit in his T'Skyrim (T'Skyrim - True Magic would also fit nicely here, altough I panic with too many options and wasn't using Apocalypse) and also Omega.

Has anyone tried T'Skyrim - True Skyrim with this build? It seems too tempting to not try... A large fix&tweak merge that includes a lot of the mods we use in the guide. Checked it against my load order in xEdit and it seems pretty east to CR. I haven't booted the game with it yet, because there are some other bits and pieces I need to test first, and would probably update the guide too. I'm also itching to try Omega, which I know has been under the radar here. If anyone could tell me in short: what mods can be uninstalledM (because they are included); where it goes (loot rules?); if any patches need changing (authors say MLU patches still work, for example - but, do they mean out of the box, or do we need to redirect references and such); where to look for conflicts to resolve in xEdit, if at all necessary - I'd be more than willing to join the testing.

Did you try to remove Bruma from the Dyndolod's exclusion list? It may be necessary for the full trees. If it still doesn't work, it may be worth asking Sheson.

FAIK you should get away with the normal porting process: re-save the plugin in the CK and run the meshes through NIF optimizer. If the CK pops facegen data into your overwrites, move it to the mod and overwrite if prompted. I did try it some months ago, as I mentioned but I dropped it for ICAIO. Now I've removed ICAIO and just checked the alternative AI mod for conflicts, if I manage to resolve those I may go back to trying city overhaul mods. It's mostly NPC edits, USSEP and a few other conflicts. I'm trying to load AI Overhaul more or less in the same position as ICAIO but that's because I don't know better, it shouldn't be absolutely necessary. It is necessary to load it before RW2, ELE and LOTD Patches Merged (if you don't want to move the patches around, it's a few more records to forward to a patch).

I would assume so. It will prevent cyclic iteration errors with LOOT if you want test your build prior to building that merge.

In LE I always used Nazenn's super lite versions of JK's cities with DoS, as well as his lite version of JK's towns. In SSE there's an issue with Dawnstar and NSUTR (JK's Dawnstar repositions some structures). At one point I patiently moved all NSUTR snow patches to their correct positions to match JK's Dawnstar, but have since abandoned that because of - guess what - ICAIO. And I didn't keep my snow patches... Still, it's possible to do it, though my method was really slow. I listed the conflicting structures in game, looked them up in xEdit, "guessed" the corresponding NSUTR snow patch records, compared the coordinates in JK's with the snow patches, adjusted them in the snow patches. With even more patience you could also add snow patches to JK's new structures... But all of this is basically to say, if you don't want this kind of trouble, best stick with JK's cities and DoS, leave the towns out of the picture. Nazenn also only has a merged towns esp, so you'd have to remove Arthmoor's Rorikstead, Dragon Bridge and Ivarstead. There are no conflicting structures but both Arth's and JK's have adjusted navmesh so, unless you know how to rebuild that, it's either one of the other. Can't help you with Smash at the moment but the latest DynDOLOD has added Bruma to the exclusion list, so we don't have to worry about it anymore. Since it ignored that worldspace, the folder isn't there, all is well.

Lexy did mention Sthaagg was working on an alterative that seems to have better performance and accomplish a similar effect, although not so all-encompassing. It especially doesn't do navmeshing and marker spamming, which I think are big causes for incompatibility . Myself and, I think, most mod users that can patch a few things lack the knowledge to rebuild navmeshes if there are incompatibilities there, or do CK work. xEdit is simply not enough to fix things for ICAIO. I agree with you on city mods not being an essential thing, although I don't really like to lose so much flexibility when modding the game. Truth of the matter is, ICAIO is probably one of the mods that's most invasive in this build. I also agree with lexy, it's a pain to mod with it. Still, I could put up with it because ICAIO's really that good - what also makes me feel like dropping it is actually what's posted on the reddit and step threads by Thalassa, Arthmoor, Nazenn and others. On those grounds, I think I'd be pretty happy to stuff in Nazenn's JK ultra light+DoS merge (Legacy will even patch itself if the Blues Skyrim esp is present), the alternative AI Overhaul (needs porting) and maybe Realistic Conversations (if the former doesn't make it redundant; RC is reported to work nicely with RDO). I'm already using PCE which is patched for ICAIO, but works nicely on its own regading court life. Immersive College of Winterhold also takes care of that corner (also patched but does a good job on its own).

LE 3dNPC page has a sticky that starts "Interesting NPCs has its own follower system that is a copy of the vanilla follower system and works on the same principle as vanilla - only one follower can be hired at a time." I assume I haven't tested thoroughly, but I'd say it should be possible to go with Sofia and Inigo plus Toccata and one 3dNPC follower, sometimes more with active quests, without using an NPC management system. But I may go back to using iAFT, anyway. No problem with Immersive Horses for me, I do like CH and I think IH doesn't have the cool training system. The lighter script load is attractive, that's all.

I'm going without any follower mods at the moment... I may try to add MHIYH. Figured that with all the special followers added by the guide (including all 3dnpc followers) that use their own follower system, I don't really need the option to recruit multiple vanilla followers. I may have missed something...

Guys, who can tell me the difference between CH and Immersive Horses? I like CH through and through, quests and all. I like to train the horse, the whistle, the summon horn, the packing ability and everything works. But people claim that IH is lighter on scripts and that alone would be a good reason to prefer it. It's also been used since Neovalen's SRLE and I could use his and Darth and Paul666root's CR guides to help fix some conflicts, the main ones seemingly being the AI that needs forwarding over mods like Skytest. Probably the CR entries for Convenient Horses in this build also have pertinent information to IH.

BTW I ported Racemenu using Dirty Weasel's video and Expired's recompiled dll's. It's "some assembly required" but kinda official (thought alpha) and works in all respects except for face sculpting. Preset saving and loading works - haven't tried with a downloaded preset. Also, from reddit: "note that XPMSE needs to be downgraded one patch level or you have to use SSE Engine Fixes (which you should be using anyway to prevent a bug that lowers your FPS the more plugins you have) otherwise you'll get CTDs with Racemenu." Update XPMSE or no update? "If it ain't broken, don't fix it". If Groovatma only published a changelog to see what important changes were made in the newer versions, I might feel motivated to move on from the version we're using. From my digging it seems all the update to 4.3x does is allow for compatibility with Racemenu, weapon scaling and that sort of stuff. The page description also mentions compatibility with SMP (and who needs the extra nightmare of installing SMP and manually editing all those capes and cloaks and any meshes you care to add it to - last time I dug, the few available instructions were published in the most esoteric and unhelpful terms imaginable, along with insults to people who find them hard to follow).

How is Frostfall and Campfire (and maybe Wearable Lanterns) coming? Is it possible to port Easy Wheel to SSE without broken functionality since the last update to UIExtensions? Just figured that, with those and if the shift to IH happens (though I like CH), many mods in this build have native Easy Wheel integration in their LE counterparts.

Could be missing skeleton (or eventually using the latest version, which is not used in the guide). Could be something else, hard to say, not knowing what the exact changes were.

I saw that mod earlier today and thought about whether the fact that it isn't ported to SSE yet would stop you from considering it ;) I'd love to see it ported to SSE. If I understand anything of its description, the CR work would mainly be done in the NPC overhaul department. Maybe requiring a lot of xEditing, but less obscure than dealing with hidden markers, navmesh edits and the lot in the CK... I wonder if simply running smash would correctly merge our npc records with those AI packages (not that I'd avoid properly resolving things the old fashioned way). I also note the mod's potential to be expanded/completed, its WIP status and the author's explicit permission "This is open source".

Curious and hopeful here! My own take on Darth's guide was to use Nazenn's work on JK's and DoS, the superlite versions. Made things interesting by adding stuff to look at and people to interact with (or just ignore) making you not pay attention to poor and repetitive npc behaviour. I topped that with Realistic Conversations (which is also available for SSE) which plays well with RDO and the result wasn't that boring.

Here's Thalassa's post on ICAIO (from a while back) as well as Arthmoor's reply and entailing discussion, on which I based my decision to leave ICAIO out of my build of Darth's guide (which in turn created problems on its own). I've since used ICAIO in both LE and SSE and enjoy playing with it, but still think it's a nightmare to mod with.

As much as I like ICAIO overall, I support you there. I love ICAIO, even when it causes me to wander about trying to find some NPC until I get used to its new routine! But ICAIO does seem to weigh on the game. I think it really is an overhaul on its own and needs to be treated as such - meaning a good percentage of your build has to be patched for it. Most of my decisions on location mods have come to be made in order to maintain compatibility with ICAIO. In simple terms, I enjoy playing with ICAIO, I don't enjoy modding with it.

Lexy, pardon my ignorance, but do you do that with a Steam version of SSE? Although everything in the steam folder seems to be completely portable, I wonder whether it's possible to have two concurrent installs under steam... Maybe I just assumed it to be impossible and, thus, never tried it.

If I disable friendly fire in vigor, should it compete with other mods or crash the game? ;)

I use the following procedure: - extract all bsa's for sound files when you install them - do the Audio Patches Merge as the guide says - manually copy all files from High Quality Music, Lucididy, audio overhaul, improved sounds compendium and werewolf sounds to the audio patches merge folder and overwrite IN THE SAME ORDER as they're installed in the left pane- temporarily move SKSE and merge folders out of the audio patches merge folder - use BSArch to repack those assets in bsa format without compression (really, it's as simple as a command: bsarch pack . "Audio Patches Merged.bsa" -sse) - delete all asset files and copy SKSE and merge folders back into the directory - activate the merge folder and deactivate all mods in the left pane You should have a merge folder containing the files Audio Patches Merged.esp, Audio Overhaul Skyrim.esp, Immersive Sounds - Compendium.esp, Audio Patches Merged.bsa and the SKSE and merge folders. The BSA will be loaded pretty late and you won't have to worry about overwrites except for other loose files hanging around. I keep most of my build packed in bsa and have no audio files overwriting these.

I've played this build in its April version until level 40 or something, no major issues detected. Finished a few quest lines, even finished wyrmstooth (which is not supported here or by Legacy ;) just wanted to say that it ran to the end of its main quest line without issues). So you can expect to be playing at any moment you complete your build, I'm sure now it should be even more stable and ironed out than in April. Some major differences (Morrowloot got it, combat system was overhauled, some other big mods) but also more bugs and conflicts resolved. Should you decide to play, just don't update anything until you finish that playthrough.

Is it ok to merge the ETAC_Riverwood patches for Claralux and RS Children in their respective merges? Another question... If I decide to go out of my mind and update to the new loot... Will it be enough to check the loot list in the finishing line, without having to go through the whole guide to update loot rules?...

It's now working, DynDOLOD inherited the correct values for my load order. But why isn't the CR forwarding the NAM2 - Water field from RW2?

"Sorta" fixed it. Wrye Bash was not forwarding the water values for Tamriel (0000003C). Specifically it had a blank water lod field. Regenerated without the bashed patch and it's fine.