Barthanes

Should we be using DDSOPT on anything in the revisited guide besides Falskaar & Wyrmstooth? Or is there any advantage to using 1k versions of Vivid Landscapes. I have a pretty beefy rig, but well Skyrim doesn't seem to care. I'm trying to conserve where I can. Not having any problems yet, but wanted to ask just in case.

Went over the changes with the latest ELFX and virtually everything I did with the patch was addressed in the update. The only thing that isnt is the acoustic space changes via SOS adn the unofficial patches. Since most everyone is switching to Audio Overhaul anyway theres no need to make a new patch. SOS-Dungeons & Civilations just wont have a few acoustic changes & honestly few people will even notice. So the patch is outdated & there really is no need to make a new one. But I did have fun doing it.

The problem with the SOS compatibility patches are they are outdated. They don't reflect any recent updates to the unofficial patches and they really conflict with ELFX. The patch I made was specifically if using STEP Core/Extended with Smiles Weather Pack. And is mostly just for testing to see if if the conflict resolution between SOS, ELFX (with Enhancer) and Climates of Tamriel with the new weather package is viable.  SOS (which I'm not a fan of, prefer AOS) is what STEP has chosen for Core so at the very least it needs to be patched for Core, which has been done with STEP Compatibility Patches. I just took it one step further.  AOS would need patching to, just not as much in my opinion. What I see as conflict resolution with this type of weather/lighting setup concerns mainly the water height (unofficial patches win), acoustic space (SoS wins), ambient lighting (ELFX/enhancer wins) weather region records (new CoT Weather Patches win). Plus it eliminates a bunch of esp's that are there only to reflect a few records which can all be merged into a single patch. Unfortunately the more heavily modded your game, the more conflicts like these need to be addressed.Â

Here is a Weather Pack Patch I made for you to try out. All I did was forward the fixes from the new USKP's. It's primarily the Water Height cell edits & Acoustic Space edits for the various SoS mods. Also moved over the lighting records for Enhancer so it wins conflicts while still working with the light changes  From the other ELFX records. I also combined the Region records for the various CoT patches to eliminate some esp's. It's nothing fancy, I'm not a modder. I just made the lights, sounds and some weathers play together a little more nicely. Please feel free to test and modify. Use BUM to load at the bottom of compatibility patches. If using STEP Core Patch.esp or STEP Extended Patch.esp place this after. The cell edits for SoS are mostly identical so you shouldn't have any conflicts there. This reflects the most recent Weather & Lighting Pack. However its set for the 0.4.1 version of Enhanced Lights and FX, including Dawnguard & Dragonborn addons. This is the load order to work right: Skyrim Project Optimization - Full Version.esm Climates of Tamriel.esm ExpandedSnowSysttems-CoT.esp ALL THREE Sounds of Skyrim (Wilds, Dungeons, Civilization) Enhanced Lights & Effects (with Dawnguard & Dragonborn addons) Climates of Tamriel-Dawnguard-Patch.esp Climates of Tamriel-Dtragonborn-Patch.esp SupremeStorms-COT Version.esp ELFX Enhancer.esp (CRITICAL, otherwise it just won't work, (FYI ELFX Exteriors would only require a few edits so I guess if people want it I could do it) BOSS sorted all these fine. The latest weather patches work seamlessly so it won't matter what night level or snow density patch you decide to play with. The following esp's can be removed. They are no longer required: SOS-Civilization PatchCOT.esp COT ESS SoSCiv PAtch.esp DGCoTEssSoSWPatch.esp SoS-TheWilds-PatchCOT.esp As I said I'm not a modder, I'm just getting pretty good with TesEdit. I figured you might want to run a test with your pack to see if it helps smooth out some of the lighting and sound conflicts.

Just installed the new Weathers Patch per your recommendations. I've also updated ELFX to 0.4.1 with Dragonborn. Expanded Snow Systems also has Sounds of Skyrim patches for Wilds & Civilization. I'm going through all the patches in TesEdit for lighting and sound conflicts to see if merging or making a general lighting and sound patch which reflects latest UKSP changes is viable. Anything to cut down esp's is never bad I think. I'll let you know if I make any headway. FYI I really think a lot of these sound conflicts I'm seeing with SoS, ELFX and other mods will go away if STEP switches to AOS which IMHO is a much more immerse and stable sound overhaul. Would still need patching probably but not as much with current STEP mods. Thanks for updating the Pack btw, it definitely makes Skyrim much more intense and realistic. (as much as killing dragons and other fantasy beasties can be realistic)

BOSS is sorting mods correctly. If I use DSR or ReProccer by thenselves it seems to sort the masters correctly according to Wyre Bash. If I use SUM it makes the merged patch fine, but the masters are out of order in Wyre Bash. Specifically the 2.0 Unofficial patches. Opened in TesEdit they are out of order, I resort masters,save & seems to work fine.

I'm using ENB 236 with Realvision ELFX/COT (Performance & Full for testing) & haven't noticed any texture problems on 760 GTX. Works fine with STEP 2.2.7 as far as I can tell.

BOSS sorting was turned on. Turned it off, but didn't seem to fix it.

I've been using SUM to merge ReProccer & Dual Sheath Redux recently and noticed that it's not sorting the masters, specifically the updated unofficial patches. Dual Sheath & Reproccer will do so individually but SUM isn't. Not a huge problem just have to resort in Tesedit, but would be nice to avoid the extra step. Anyone experienced this or is it just me?

MO 1.0.9 shows Brawl Bugs CE, BWS, Thundering Shouts & Follower Trap Safety as being dummy esp's. It looks like if you enable the BSA's in Archives these can be de-selected. STEP recommends you install everything as loose files so there are no BSA's. I'm assuming this feature can be ignored?

Will patches still work as intended with the updated Weapons & Armor Fixes?

I've tried a lot of housing mods, some are enormous, some are simple. Really comes down to what you want. Sounds like you want some crafting & automated sorting. Try Jaggarsfeld https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/38392/? I've been using that & its has some of the crafting & sorting your looking for. Honestly Herathfires homes usually get the job done pretty well, not so much if you hate building.

Also sounds like you're optimizing textures so be sure to review Garfinks thread in regards to textures for performance & stability. https://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=3319 My personal experience is that optimizing everything (and I mean everything except WATER and RaceMenu) to 1024x512 has made an enormous improvement on stability & load times. I do this for any mod I add that has textures just to be safe. If you plan on adding Packs as they become available some will have scripts which drastically affect stability & load times. Crushing your textures to 1024x512 is a good way to make sure your getting as much performance as you can ahead of time IMHO. good luck!

What you're doing is correct. Install the STEP mods as instructed as loose files. The first time MO encounters a BSA it will ask if you want t extract it. Make sure you say yes and it will extract all future BSA's as loose files. It's been my experience that while loose files do increase load times it's much better for conflict resolution of textures and some other assets. And the increased time is not that bad, you won't even notice it with STEP: Core

That looks right to me but I'm pretty sure Hearthfires goes after Dawnguard. Loose files is the preferred method from what I understand.

I'm so glad I'm not alone in the frustration of trying to mod skyrim. I played through 2-3 times with just Steam Workshop, Nexus Mod Manager and the DLC's without any problems. I had never heard about BOSS, ENB's, Papyrus or whatever a Bashed Patch was. It just worked. I had some mods like Towns & Villages, Lanterns of Skyrim, and my girls walked around in skimpy armor. And it worked. I dropped in a few texture mods like Skyrim HD & SMIMM with the Bethesda Hi-Res textures. Still worked. Got some weapon & armour mods. i added mods, played, updated mods, removed mods. I never bothered with uninstalling instructions or clean saves. I had no idea i was supposed to. And it worked. I played & played. Then in April I installed Helgen Reborn & things started freezing & crashing. (Not this mods fault I know, we all know why it stopped being stable). So I decided to get serious and do it right. It's now mid-September & I have played exactly 0 hours other than testing & crashing. I have learned TesEdit (mostly), I've DDSopt every texture from vanilla to texture packs to character mods a half dozen times. I've bashed, merged, made compatibility patches, modified load orders, install orders, you name it. I've used STEP which does work extremely well. (But while every Argonian needs to have his head chopped off correctly & Jarls need to dress properly, its more important to me to know that if i swim in arctic seas in a pushup daedric bra i will die of exposure.) I want Frostfall & Skyrim Redone. i need Cerwiden & Vilija. I want elves that look like elves. I want my swords and shields to hang on my back. So i tried Skyrim Revisited: Legendary (all versions since its not complete) I have mastered ENB's with Boris's new system. I've followed every guide, every advice from all the wonderful people here. And it's not bad advice. Apparently your frustrated to. But I still can't play. So I'm going back to Nexus Mod Manager & using what I learned I'll back off on the texture overhauls & HD armors and people mods & maybe I can actually get back to playing.