ChiefBigFeather

Na, I really didn't mean you :) Reading my post again, I see that it can easily be understood that way. What I meant to say is that you are pouring your free time into the STEP project. For others to make passive aggressive statements about how you should best use that time seems inappropriate. Besides, it is also really counter productive. No one obligates you to contribute in a way you do not want to, that's how the Skyrim community works (*hopefully, *mostly, ect. ). You probably contributing to STEP because you are having fun sharing your expertise in the current modding process and building with others. That alone seems like a really good reason to keep things the way they are.

Well, I'd say I was more on the power user side of things. I'd definitely use a more automated STEP install, as I am prone to fatigue when installing mods for hours and tend to make errors. Then I make everything worse trying to fix those errors :) But I've always used STEP as a baseline modded Skyrim, so getting that baseline up and running faster would have been a big convenience. I can totally understand you not wanting to invest the time though. As for whether people learn a lot about modding when following STEP: I'm not so sure. Your guide may be a bit too well crafted for that :) I do not think that automation takes something away though, the same way STEP did not take anything away when I didn't know what all the options in all the fomods of my modlist did. That is ultimately the conservative argument: I was having fun having to do it, and so should you son! But I think easier, more convenient tools are a good thing. The interested people will still dive deeper, the ignorant ones already found ways to not care. New tools is generally a good way to build a foundation out of accumulated knowledge. If you actually want to invest your free time in building said foundation is an entirely different beast, and being passive-aggressive about your views on modding in that context seems inappropriate to me. I'm extremely tired, seeing that the discussion was a little tense at times I hope I didn't stir anything up. Even thinking about having the time to install mods again will be a long way in the future for me, so I have no investment one way or the other :)

Thanks a lot, but I think I do not really have the time to get back into Skyrim at this time :)

Glad to see you are still maintaining STEP. I have been a long time user, but forgot the password and recovery for my old account (Spock). STEP has always been a great starting point when installing Skyrim mods! I still disagree with some sound mod choices (the "realistic" ones), but they are easy to remove and I'm really glad you keep the project alive!