Kelmych

If the bashed patch somehow gets corrupted you can have problems when rebuilding the bashed patch. However, you don't actually need the previous bashed patch as it is replaced by the new one. You do, however, need to have at least a basic bashed patch in the Data directory. Get a copy of the original small generic bashed patch that comes with WB; you can find this in Skyrim\Mopy\templates\Skyrim. Put the copy in the Data directory.

The working directory is a separate directory, outside of the Skyrim directory that contains the Skyrim program and its data, used for processing the extracted HRDLC. Other than not being inside the Skyrim directory it can be almost anywhere. I expanded the description of it in the guide; hopefully the description is now clearer.

TES5Edit does have some useful scripts; I regularly use the one that suggests Wrye Bash bash tags for mods. There is a script for creating a patch between Climates of Tamriel and Sounds of Skyrim that you might be able to use as an example for creating your own script. I've never seen any tutorial descriptions of how to build scripts for TES5Edit; all the ones I know of were created by the TES5Edit development group. You can check in the official thread for TES5Edit, but I've not seen discussion of script building in that thread. For my game I build patches manually. I use a TES5Edit Merge Patch, but that (and the WB bashed patch) only cover a few record types (unlike TES4 and Fallout NV; both the WB bashed patch and FNVedit/TES4Edit Merge Patch cover almost all record types for these games). There has periodically been discussion of building SkyProc patchers that cover the Skyrim record types that the WB bashed patch doesn't, but nothing has emerged yet. You might want to post on the TES5Edit official thread that you are interested in doing this and see what response you get.

I use them also, although it is understandable why some users might be concerned. As far as I can tell, as Ethatron has said, the DDSopt collapsing is correct. It also occurs a lot in face tint textures; I haven't checked in-game whether the displayed versions of these are correct.

Are you using version 2.0 beta of BSAopt? You can also use DDSopt to do this as it shares the same code as BSAopt.

I found many 43kb textures replaced, and I reran DDSopt on the vanilla textures to make sure. Here is one log entry as an example: # blackreach.16.-23.7.dds #####################################################  Skyrim\Wkg folder\Vanilla  Extracted\STD\textures\terrain\blackreach\blackreach.16.-23.7.dds  processing:  Format          : DXT1 to A8R8G8B8  Dimensions      : 256x256 to 1x1 - 9 to 1 levels   notes:  Planar image detected, collapsing to size 1x1.  Texture was compressed.  delta:           43700 bytes less This particular texture is 256x256 and all cells are the same color, so ideally it should be able to be collapsed to a single cell. There is no alpha channel in the original texture. The preview display for the optimized texture doesn't look like the original but it isn't the display of a planar image at all; of course, I previously noticed that the DDSopt preview display isn't always correct when the image dimensions change. The Compressonator view of the optimized image is also strange, but the parameters are correct. Again, I'm not sure how Compressonator can display a 1x1 image.

I looked in my optimized Skyrim Data\textures\terrain folder and found many cases where DDSopt took 43 kb files and created 132 byte files. It happened roughly 20-25% of the time on the 43 kb files. I looked in the DDSopt logs and in all cases it said "Planar image detected, collapsing to size 1x1." There was a recent mention of similar problems with some face textures being detected as planar. Ethatron discussed this briefly in Q2 of the technical discussions a while ago. He said that this texture collapse is actually correct in many cases but there can be an issue where video cards do not always handle these planar textures properly. Is there someway to disable this DDSopt feature in the INI file (vs. listing every individual texture) for video cards that don't handle it correctly?

Agree. I included information on it in a page I recently created and am editing (see Merging Patches and Merging Plugins in Skyrim in my signature). I still have a lot more information I need to add, however. In previous games (Fallout NV, TES4) Â the WB Bashed patch was more comprehensive and useful than the TES5Edit merge patch, but in Skyrim WB is much more limited and the TES5Edit Merge Patch can be a very useful supplement to the bashed patch (at the cost of an additional esp plugin).

As discussed in the BSA Extraction and Optimization guide, there have been some CTD problems noted by users when using optimized versions of the non-texture Skyrim BSAs. Some users have also had CTD problems with the optimized DLC BSAs when they are saved as BSAs vs. loose files. Most users have not run into this, but some have.

The mod seems like it could noticeably improve immersion so I'm interested in trying it. I checked some of the esp files in the new version (0.53) with TES5Edit, and all of the files I checked had a fairly large number of ITMs. Are these intentional or are they errors?

Yes, install both.

I brought this up only because the description for Sleep Wait Menu - 48 hours makes it seem like it might take a lot of realtime if you have a long wait/sleep. No Boring Wait Menu is somewhat fast.

Neo doesn't use it himself and hasn't included it in SR since he didn't see a need for it. I personally use it and have several uses for it.

Did you compare the two mods to see how much realtime it takes for each of the mods to provide a 31 day rest?

If you have vanilla Skyrim you can't dual wield staves, and I tested the hotkeys mod without a dual weapon enabling mod. If you have a mod that enables dual staves the hotkey mod might work fine, as you said.

Less Intrusive HUD, and Simple Crosshair in the STEP list, don't provide their own colored map markers on the compass. Moreover, as they state in their descriptions, they are not compatible with any mod that changes hudmenu.swf or hudmenu.gfx. The mods that do provide colored map markers change hudmenu.gfx, so you can't have colored map markers with either of these two HUD mods. Immersive HUD, also in the STEP list, is compatible with mods that add colored map markers since Immersive HUD doesn't change hudmenu.gfx. However, Immersive HUD doesn't have all of the features that these other two mods have; it does, of course, have a fairly large set of useful HUD features.

I haven't seen anyone comment that they actually liked the style of the interface; it doesn't seem especially consistent with Skyrim or other Elder Scrolls games. It was added to support waiting or sleeping for multiple days. From a gameplay perspective it has a very basic interface, but it is effective for what it is intended to provide. Without this mod, it is very tedious to wait 31 days when you need to do this to fix a game problem.

I don't quite agree with Neo on Lantern Caretakers. I have seen them a number of times and IMO they improve immersion. Of course, we may decide to change the criteria for what is in core STEP and what is in a pack. If we decide that this mod should be optional there are some other mods I suggest we also consider moving to a future immersion pack (e.g., non-essential children). The last time I used Skytest it was a very script-heavy and somewhat resource hungry (since it adds a number of animals). Has this changed significantly?

As per Neo's comment, should we remove mods (moving them to a future pack) that are actually optional and not needed by all (or almost all) STEP users? This would likely include mods like the Interface Key Mod and Time on Loading Screen mod.

The immersive battles plugin adds a lot of Stormcloak and Imperial NPCs in a small area. In regions where VRAM use is already high there can be CTDs due to running out of VRAM if your character gets too close.

I prefer the BCS ones because of the variety. Real book covers are usually different for every book.

Correct. The NACMIM version that includes map icons on the compass isn't compatible with Simple Crosshair or any other mod that changes hudmenu.gfx. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a mod that provides both colored map icons on the compass and crosshair modifications.Â

With some patches, you need to merge record by record to accommodate the variety of conflicts. For example, you need to create patches manually when merging location name, weather (e.g., CoT), audio (e.g., SoS), and lighting (e.g., RLO) patches since each set of patches affects a different set of records within an entry. Fortunately this isn't always true and you can use the esp merge approach to merge some esps and some sets of patches. By the way, for this mod I am keeping my own merged esp version since I prefer the immersive battle esp version that excludes fighting outside Whiterun. I sometimes get CTDs because of the increased VRAM use that the Whiterun battle would otherwise produce.

I also only play in fullscreen mode, so that mod isn't useful to me. However, when I alt tab out of Skyrim and then return it is tricky to avoid getting two pointers; the mod that fixes this is useful to me.

In order to provide the colored markers you need to use the NACMIM hudmenu.gfx . Perhaps someday one of these alternate HUD menus will provide colored map markers as part of their mod or learn to coexist with another mod which provides a version of hudmenu.gfx with colored map markers. I haven't seen any HUD mods that can make use of the colored map markers in map.swf; you end up with colored markers on the map but black and white ones on the compass.