Darklocq

All noted. The key question is whether 3.0.0 does in fact work as-is. I would think that 99.9% of it works, but those two cannot-resolve errors are likely to do SOMETHING at some point. I don't know if it would be a big red missing-mesh icon, just something not visibly appearing, or a CTD, or what. My thoughts all along have been that the CR patch file could be replaced (with the fixed one I posted a Mega link to), and its Nexus version number incremented as a minor hotfix, without adjusting the STEP version number at all, since nothing substantive changed. If that's not "how it works", then I would think it's v3.0.1, not 3.1.0, for that lack-of-substantive-change reason. After this question is sorted, I'll start working first on instructional fixes to the current instructions, without changes in mod recommendations; then improved-version mod recommendations; only after that any more substantive change proposals]. Also with an eye to reducing the dependency complexity of the CR Patch (which also has a big impact on what people can merge to save mod slots; e.g., I see that one dependency of it right now is a mod and another is a patch for that mod, so it's kind of a double-whammy). I'm also in process of building my own game out (I'm now at the merging like mad stage, since my STEP build works, after adding Falskaar, Wyrmstooth, and a bunch of other goodies. I have yet to add in most of my gear, follower, and quest mods. And I'll want to actually play it a bit. Almost forgot that's why I was doing this build. Ha ha. If the Nexus CR Patch download won't be replaced until there's a bigger change, then I'll start on the fixing-the-current-instructions material sooner than later.

Update: I got original-author permission for the Non-Essential Children patch, for Simple Children + Better Quest Objectives. So NEC will no longer need to be hard-coded as a master in a future version of the CR patch. (I"m glad of that myself; I don't want NEC, since I have no desire to pickpocket kids or step over their corpses; it was among the least important mods added to STEP.) Still waiting to hear from author of Non Essential Children Reworked, though that's a trivial re-mod of a trivial mod, so it won't hold up anything.

I think we're talking about two different things. I was talking about the unresolveable references in the CR patch; I was told that would necessitate a hotfix posted to the Nexus page, and a version increment, and I should hold off changing anything until after that. So have been thus holding. :-)

Any timeline for the 3.0.1 or 3.1.0 hotfix? I'm still holding off any updates (changed FOMOD options, etc.) until after that. No hurry (I've been busy making patches for stuff like "Unofficial Skyrim City Patch Reawakened" and "Immersive Content - Realistic Outdoor Lights"). Just want to plan ahead for it.

So it should forward in the upper part AND keep the chef clothes in the lower part, or just the former?

On Masque mods: The new one is the old one plus a Khajiit version; the Argonian part of it's identical to the old one. This one's mergeable into the CP at the ESP level. because it's literally nothing but an ARMO tweak and two ARMAs. It'd be one of those where the instructions are to install the original mod then hide one file (its ESP). If that's not permissible (despite doing this with other mods), then switching to the new one without integrating its ESP's three lines into the CP would still be desirable. The children one: It's the same as the original mod but with an improvement (something the original missed - if the kids are mortal after all, then vampires would be able to feed on them). The glitch in both of them that I patched is just keyword-related, but permissions are pending. I don't mean to inject Mod A vs. Mod B as choices in the guide. Rather, if something doesn't need to be a hard dependency for the CP because it can be resolved by patching the original mod, then that keeps the CP simpler and also sometimes has the side effect of increasing end-user choice, whether they know that or not. For EBT, the guide would still recommend the Lite version. It just wouldn't have a CP that unintuitively fails to load if someone installs the Full version. Or in some cases, like merging the Argonian masque ESP's trivial changes, it does hard-code something (things one wouldn't object to - no one wants to force Argonians to have human-shaped heads), just more efficiently and without creating an ESP/ESM master dependency. In my case, I wanted to use the full version of Enhanced Blood Textures and was not able, and that seemed weird so I resolved it, while with the Argonian thing, it was more practical, "Why am I being forced to spend an ESP slot on something I'll never use unless I play as Argonian? And why can't I switch to this better version with Khajiit, since that's what I actually DO want?" I'm drawing a distinction between injecting explicit user choice (which, yeah, might kind of fork the guide into different directions) versus just not artificially hard-limiting choice. Most of STEP is replaceable, but not (without know-how and effort) the CP dependencies. I certainly understand not making a dozen competing patches for different setups; wasn't going in that direction! I get the concern, though. On the CR stuff where it's doing leveled list changes that don't correspond to any masters: I'll get some details next time I look at it. And it's not high-priority anyway; updating the current instructions is. Actually, I remember where one is and will just screenshot it: The CP is patching the stealth skills mod consistently to conform to CACO changes (even over those of CCF), but then all of a sudden it deleted three items all the masters want to keep, and then it injects Chef clothes out of nowhere. Why does it want a cook's outfit included so badly here and at the expense of regular stuff? Heh. If not for a few bits like this it would be very easy to make a Stealth Skills Rebalanced + CACO patch, for Nexus, that obviated any need for the CP to try to patch between them. Assuming there's not such a patch already, which there might be.

Will do. I figured this would take priority over other stuff (unless I'm somehow mistaken about it). I-i-interesting. I'd been about to commit to "Ultrawidescreen Fixes for Skyrim LE", but "Flawless Widescreen" on the SE side certainly seemed less klugey. I gotta check out for a while. Will be back within a day, I'm sure. Edit: Oh, Flawless WS is that external program; I was thinking of Complete Widescreen Fix SE and/or TrueBy9.

That was my understanding, based on the Versioning page (and what's been said here to date). I mustn't bite off more than I can chew on day one! "Under-promise, over-deliver" and all 'at. But that copy-to-fork-and-increment was already what I'd figured on doing if it came time for a 3.0.1. I've been into Skyrim for years and keep coming back to it, and I have SE but don't plan to use it any time soon, since a bunch of mods I dig aren't ported to it yet. I'll be around. Even if I become not-around for a while (real life can intervene with stuff like cross-country moves - ya never know), I'll come back. I don't do ESO, and I'm not waiting with bated breath for TESVI (it's going to be a buggy mess, of course, so it won't be any good for a year or so after release, LOL).

I like the sound of Curator, too. As for the overall vision, I get it. My goal hasn't been to remake 3.x in my own image with my pet mods, but fix up stuff. My pet mods belong in a user "unofficial guide". Like my ongoing project-of-sorts to make Ethereal Elven Overhaul viable again. Maybe something on modern follower management with FLP. To the extent "new mods" would be added to 3.x, I figure they would just be like-for-like upgrades (e.g. "Non Essential Children Reworked" in place of "Non-Essential Children"), and maybe some easy-to-merge quality of life fixes like "Muffle Your Dog" quiet version (to stop dog drowning out your quest-giver). I'll need to go over again the list of mods that the CR Patch makes unnecessary. Oh! One worth-including thing would be 21:9 ultra-wide, which is very common now. I'm embarking on that myself, so when I get it worked out I'll be able to write up all the wrinkles.

Taking that in order: I'd already read the versioning page, and have lurked some related threads (not sure they're the more internal ones - I don't think I tried to post in any of them). Unofficial guide: already had one or another planned, but low-priority. NSFW: probably not (I've never installed SexLab), but I can see doing a page on how to adapt some of it to SFW use (e.g. you might have to wander onto LL to get something). On another site, I actually wrote something about what LL is good for if you're not into sex mods. I've been reading up on Semantic MW anyway; I'm in the user guide in another tab. Transclusion and WLH: Yeah, I make a lot of use of that stuff on WP and other wikis. Good to know about the templates-and-transclusion issues. My normal habit is to create convenience templates for markup and such, but now I know that's not the way here. Headings and ToC: noted. Ready to start: probably in a day; no hurry. I need a nap anyway, ha ha. Consensus on change: Right; I already understood that's how it worked. I'm more into "let's not make this mod mandatory if we don't have to" than "we should make this super-awesome mod mandatory".

I'll pore over all this after some coffee. I'm fine with whatever role you want to assign, and method to follow. A quick update (I'm in the midst of patch posting and such). * There's a pair of errors in the STEP CR Patch, I'm not sure if potentially CTD-causing. A headgear item has two "Error: Could not be resolved". It's 'DBArmorHelmetWorn "Shrouded Masked Cowl" [ARMO:00105969]', seemingly two custom-race heads from someone's personal game). I've patched those out and this is probably worth a hotfix at the Nexus without incrementing anything other than the file's version number: https://mega.nz/file/dBh2xbJL#QRyrDPK3b3PBXxyRA6bm-nArxqxM_f-jiRbC29cQ2f8 I can't think of a good reason for those to be in there. What other heads are there to deal with for a helmet/hood than humanoid, Argonian, and Khajiit? I'm thinking it was probably Citrus or Demonica or something. * Worth an incremented-version consideration: Some mods that end up being masters for the CR probably shouldn't be, either because they don't pertain to many players or they're things people might object to. ** I've already patched out "Masque of Argonian Vile": https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/108061/ and eliminated it as a master (not in the hotfix file above; that ONLY removed the unresolvables). There's a better mod for this anyway, that also does Khajiit, and it needs no patching. Better yet, the ESP (in either of these cases) can be entirely eliminated! I've already produced a CR that does this. ** Next, I patched out "Enhanced Blood Textures Lite": https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/108063 - one can now use the Full version if one wants to (at the cost of at least 1 more ESP slot). Made a new CR that merges this with the tweak above. ** Still pending permissions: I patched out "Non-essential Children" and made a new-new CR that doesn't have it as a master. It can be swapped with the improved "Non Essential Children Reworked", though both actually had a bug in them which I also fixed. Both have restrictive permissions, but still-around authors, so I've written to both of them. ** Not having "Stealth Skills Rebalanced" be a CR master would also be desirable, but there's some weirdness going on there that needs closer examination (CR is imposing changes not found in ANY of its masters, to trivial stuff like what low-end clothing is in some leveled lists). Not sure if that's an error (like leftovers from STEP LE 2.x), or if some tool was used that merged LLs without making master dependencies. ** There're probably other mods that're CR masters that can be patched out like this with replacement ESPs. These patches I'm generating will be useful for some non-STEP people, too. That was just in the course of trying to reduce my own ESP load, and doesn't really relate to the "this FOMOD has changed" and "there's a typo here" kind of stuff to tweak in 3.0.0.

I'm definitely comfortable with geekier wiki editing. I'd already broached the idea with another of the admins. I'm a 15+ year veteran of en.wikipedia (where I'm a TemplateEditor, PageMover, etc.; not an admin - that job is mostly politicized psychodrama at a site that large). All in: Yeah, the "approximately 2 days" STEP 3.0.0 setup was about a month for me! I was taking extensive notes, like every single patch available in a FOMOD and on its download page, where typos are, what mods recommended have actually been abandoned and replaced by new versions at different Nexus mod ID numbers (at least three, and I'm responsible for one or another of them), places where the advice in the guide seems inconsistent, mods STEP recommends which were never updated for USLEP (so I went and patched them), etc., etc., etc. Some of what I've been up to will make it into a user-level guide page instead, and isn't main STEP Guide material - things like integrating Ethereal Elven Overhaul (wrote new patches for that, too). So, yeah, put my OCD to work here. >;-) I'm not a primadonna, self-promotional modder; I mostly write patches, with as few restrictions as possible under the Nexus circumstances, and give away most of the donation points or mod rewards or whatever Nexus calls them now. I'm aware this site uses some particular and complex MediaWiki packages, and promise to pore over their documentation before wading into any code I don't understand. I think the most complex thing I have in mind would be tracing a transclusion chain of templates and modules to find where ever some particular text "lived" to update it there. I also wouldn't make any substantive changes (like which mods are recommended, etc.) without vetting it, of course. I'd already been lurking in some of the STEP LE 2.x vetting threads for a couple of years, actually (like the debate about Skyrim Realistic Overhaul and what to piecemeal replace it with, before it suddenly came back). Some "résumé" points: * Latest patching work: Unofficial Skyrim City Patch (USCP) Reawakened * Directly STEP-relevant: AI Overhaul for USLEP * Ditto: Waterbreathing Breathless Emerge for USLEP * I was also the most extensive mod tester for OpenMW, but my user page at their wiki isn't up right now; they're overhauling the entire wiki since a month or two ago. Edit: I found where it was moved to. Includes my Morrowind and OpenMW companion/follower guide.

PPS: I'm documenting these instructional glitches as I go, so I'll bring them up later. I.e., I know exactly which FOMODs have changed to no longer match STEP instructions, etc.

PS: > Also, the mod page already specifies that patches are included in the CR patch, so .... But this particular game guide is no longer being [very] actively maintained while many mods are. STEP SLE 3.0.0 is already wrong about several FOMODs and the options in them, for example. There is no guarantee that the patches STEP was aware of last time that particular part of the guide was revised still match the options available in any given FOMOD. Just stating upfront that the patches for thus-and-such, specifically, are already included in the STEP CR Patch is a better bet than forcing the user into assumptions and guesswork, and that will become more true over time. Given that the detailed instructional verbiage is already collapse-boxed, it won't do anything to "bloat" the guide, and is likely to head off confusions (and further threads like this one). I've found about 5 other places where 3.0.0 is forcing the user to assume that a FOMOD or downloads-page patch is probably already in the CR Patch (if they're really much aware of the CR patch yet, which is mostly later in the guide).

Thank you. They are not clear. There's a major meaning difference between "select nothing" (take no action to select anything) and "deselect everything" (or "make sure no options are selected" and various other ways to phrase this), since options are apt to be selected already without any user action. I.e. "You literally 'select nothing'" still results in items being pre-selected not by you. :-) I've done technical writing (mostly documentation) for a living, so I think about these things. Never underestimate the ability of end users to misinterpret! LOL

That's a semantic quibble. The point is, STEP does not instruct users to change records in the main game files (other than by TESVEdit's auto-cleaning procedure), so there is no reason or rationale to recommend this option. It's trivially easy to accidentally change master-file records with that option on, and if you do that you'll have to restore the originals from a backup or by having Steam re-install (which is a different kind of hazard, more so in SSE than SLE since you might get newer SLE files that what you had, and end up with savegames that are no longer usable). It's what en.Wikipedia would call a WP:BEANS ("Don't stuff beans up your nose") matter, a particularly pernicious form of "instruction creep". Anyway, as noted the -TESV flag is also pointless to recommend, since we're not starting xEdit in a way that needs it.

Verra nice!

04 - 14 - Even Better Quest Objectives The STEP instructions are very unclear, saying "select nothing" for the FOMOD's optional patches. But the FOMOD auto-detects various mods that are present and enables patches for them. It is unclear if STEP means "de-select everything" or "select nothing additional". Given that this mod is not flagged as one of the dependencies of the STEP Conflict Resolution Patch, the safe bet appears to be to leave enabled all the patches the installer wants to include; they'll get merged into the final result anyway. Also, it has a patch for The Paarthurnax Dilemma, which STEP has integrated (so the FOMOD did not detect it), and one wonders whether leaving that disabled is going to cause a problem. If any/all of these patches should not be enabled, then STEP should be clear about this, and add something like "The STEP Conflict Resolution patch already handles patching for [mod names here]", so obsessive-compulsives don't over-enable patches they don't need. If that's the case, then this mod should also have a green bar next to it, I would think, since it would seem to be part of the CR patch's dependency chain.

I was going to bring this up myself. I think it's okay to include -IKnowWhatImDoing, but there is absolutely no need to directly edit the game's master files, and it's dangerous to have option on, since it is easy to do so by mistake when it is enabled. However, the first flag given, -TESV, is not needed either, because you're telling people to call the executable as TESVEdit.exe, not as xEdit.exe.

So, eh, where is it? All the links go to 404s.

Yep. (I was off doing other games for a while). I'm presently in the midst of a STEP 3.0.0 installation of LE right now. Exciting. Well, tedious, but my anticipation level is high. :-)

Noted! And I see what you mean by major changes. Whole new domain and look-'n'-feel, even. :-) What's the procedure for becoming a wiki editor here? I don't mean to make drastic changes to things, but would at least like to fix some typos. I actually put my 2.10.0 re-built on hold and played other games a while, but am now back to firing up Skyrim again, so we'll see how that goes. I'm still going to work on a "STEP Beyond" or "Step 2.11" for LE, whether that ends up hosted here or not. There's so much awesome recent-ish stuff to add to an LE game these days, and a zillion mods not working in SE yet if ever, that LE isn't going to die any year soon. One just needs a lot of memory management!

The LE instructions need some basic cleanup. People following STEP for LE are being misled into 2.2.9.2 base install instructions, per-mod instructions that no longer match it but match 2.10.0, and a STEP Compilation install that contains material they already manually installed (or which conflicts) from the 2.2.9.2 obsolete instructions. The current/final version for LE should be listed as 2.10.0. * SkyrimLE:2.10.0 has a release date of June 11, 2017. It was last substantively updated 15 June 2017 or 21 March 2019 (depending on your definition of "substantive")‎. ** It has many changes reflected in the forum discussions, in per-mod instruction pages, and in the composition of the LE version of STEP Compilation. * SkyrimLE:2.10.1 has a release date of November 23, 2015; that's the same as 2.2.9.2, but appears not to have been released at all. I.e., it's an error. ** Lists significant changes like "We have replaced Skyrim HD with Skyrim Realistic Overhaul has our baseline for all textures", etc., but these are not reflected in the corresponding changelog, and actually appear to be changes made in 2.10.0. ** Worse, they do not actually appear in the instructions below the intro material (e.g. SRO is never mentioned again, and Skyrim HD is still in there), so this appears to be a copy-paste of 2.2.9.2 which was given a new intro then abandoned (though its text does not perfectly match that of 2.2.9.2, so I guess some twiddles were made to it here and there before it was dropped). Why this was attempted with 2.2.9.2 instead of 2.10.0 as the base to work from is a mystery. ** 2.10.1 changelog last substantively updated: 16:30, 2 September 2017. It lists no changes to the main STEP page, but only to per-mod instruction pages, and these appear to be correct. They seem to be changes that really pertain to 2.10.0 and maybe a bit of post-release tweaking. * SkyrimLE:2.2.9.2 (i.e. what would be 2.9.2 if the new version scheme had been retro-applied) has a release date of November 23, 2015, which appears to be correct. It was last substantively updated 12 July 2016 or 3 March 2017 (depending on your definition of "substantive"), so it entirely pre-dates 2.10.0. ** Like "2.10.1", it is out of step (pardon the pun) with forum threads, per-mod instruction pages, and STEP Compilation. It is barely distinguishable in most details from 2.10.1, but very different from 2.10.0 which is later than 2.10.1 despite the earlier version number. It appears to me that: 1) 2.2.9.2, currently listed as the current/final STEP guide for Skyrim LE, is actually obsolete compared to 2.10.0, since various changes listed for 2.10.0 did in fact result in changes to various instructional subpages for particular mods, and these instructions match the setup conditions for 2.10.0, not 2.2.9.2. 2) Various consensus discussions appear to support the changes that were made between 2.2.9.2 and 2.10.0, e.g. returning to SRO over Skyrim HD. Similarly, the changelog for 2.10.0 and the ersatz 2.10.1 make it clear that mod-specific subpages were updated for 2.10.0 and maybe a bit after it, and even STEP Compilation was updated with new integrations in response, so 2.2.9.2 is telling people to separately install various things that STEP Compilation already has or will replace. People should NOT be following 2.2.9.2. 3) 2.10.0 should be "advertised" as the final version for LE, in place of 2.2.9.2. (Main STEP page would need an update in this regard, and things like the "View the current changelog instead" links are wrongly pointing to 2.2.9.2's changelog.) 4) 2.10.1 is a mangled, abandoned draft (based on the wrong older version to begin with), and should be deleted, or hidden, or blanked and redirected to 2.10.0, or renamed to 2.10.1_draft and have a banner at the top saying it's broken, or something, so no one ever tries to use it. It should not retain a release date of November 23, 2015, since it was not in fact released. Side notes: It is unhelpful and misleading to suggest that the latest version of STEP for LE "is out of date" and "may contain information that is incorrect or not in line with the current state of the game". The game Skyrim LE is not the same game as Skyrim SE, and attempting to follow STEP instructions for one when you have the other is going result in total failure. It would make much more sense to: A) Modify this message to point directly to the last/current version on a per-game-engine basis (2.10.0 for LE), and use that banner on all old versions. B) On the final version for LE (2.10.0), use a custom banner stating that work on STEP for LE has stopped with that version, and that STEP recommends migrating to SE, for which STEP is providing continued updates. I would be happy to help with stuff, but do not have write access to the wiki. I'm still studying the page-naming, categorization, templating, and other structures on this site (I do have lots of MediaWiki experience, though). My current personal project is drafting up a "STEP Beyond" tutorial on setting up Skyrim LE (for now - SE to follow later) based on latest STEP for that engine, updated to account for new stuff like HDT-SMP, Nemesis, etc. I.e., I'm basically working on "SkyrimLE:2.11.0" in STEP terms. In the course of trying to follow SkyrimLE:2.10.1 and SkyrimLE:2.2.9.2, comparing them with each other, I noticed that the per-mod instruction pages no longer agreed with either of them, and eventually figured out that the real final version of STEP for LE is 2.10.0. Ended up having to start over from scratch following 2.10.0. :-/ People who dwell in the forum might have already known all about this stuff, but visitors to the wiki just looking to set up their game are not going to be aware of any of it, and are being directly misled that 2.2.9.2 is current/final for LE.

My version, from a "STEP Beyond" document I'm working on, of post-2015 improvements to STEP for LE: 1. Get all 5 components of SRO, from: https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-realistic-overhaul/downloads These are manual not MO2 downloads. 2. Extract all of them. This is basically a mess that needs to be repackaged so MO2 can work with it. 3. Create a folder called "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 SE", and a "Docs" subfolder under it. 4. Rename "Skyrim_Realistic_Overhaul_Part_1\readme.txt" to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.7 readme.txt", and move it to that Docs folder. 5. Move the contents of "Skyrim_Realistic_Overhaul_Part_1\data\textures" to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 SE\", so you have "textures" next to "Docs". 6. Drag "Skyrim_Realistic_Overhaul_Part_2\data\textures" to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 SE\", and let it merge into the "textures" folder there. 7. Drag "Skyrim_Realistic_Overhaul_Part_3\data\textures" to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 SE\", and let it merge into the "textures" folder there. 8. Rename "Skyrim_Realistic_Overhaul_1.8._Update\Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8. Update\readme.txt" to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 Update readme.txt" and move it to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 SE\Docs\". 9. Drag "Skyrim_Realistic_Overhaul_1.8._Update\Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8. Update\data\textures" to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 SE\", and let it merge into the "textures" folder there, allowing it to replace any files. 10. Use 7zip or your archiver of choice to zip up the combined "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 SE" into a new archive. Wait for the long archive operation to finish. This is now your installer for SRO in an SSE game. 11. Rename "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 SE" to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 LE" (I mean the folder, not the archive you just zipped up). 12. Rename "SRO_1.8._Original_Skyrim_versions_update\SRO 1.8. Original Skyrim version update\readme.txt" to to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 LE Update readme.txt" and move it to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 SE\Docs\". 13. Drag "SRO_1.8._Original_Skyrim_versions_update\SRO 1.8. Original Skyrim version update\data\textures to "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 LE\", and let it merge into the "textures" folder there, allowing it to replace files. 14. Use 7zip or your archiver of choice to zip up the combined "Skyrim Realistic Overhaul 1.8 LE" into a new archive. Wait for the long archive operation to finish. This is now your installer for SRO in Oldrim. Move it to your MO2's downloads directory. See STEP 2.2.9 for where SRO goes in the load order: https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.9

I'm migrating from macOS, so I know jack about Windows fonts yet. Can anyone recommend a good Unicode font for use in TES5Edit that includes the CJK characters as well as Cyrillic and Latin? I can easily find Latin+Cyrillic ones, but finding one that also includes Chinese and Japanese has proved challenging. I get a lot of Asian and Russian mods and want to translate strings in their records into English, but they just show up as gibberish instead of the real Chinese, Japanese, or Russian.