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Wow - that does look really good. Meshes and textures for NPC creatures can be replaced during the middle of a game without any glitches, right? And will already generated creatures be changed automatically by activating such a mod, or would the command prompt be required in order to "refresh the object's mesh/texture"?

Wow - that does look really good. Let me know how you think it compares to what's currently in STEP.

Well now we have a STEP discussion page for it. ;)

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/59700/? I can't believe that no one posted this mod yet on here. It's been up since November 5th.

Too bad that Yuki mod that makes a bunch of misc items into weapons isn't compatible with the icons mod - I bet that's why you haven't included it.

"I've been ignoring the the updates to the Advanced Recon mods for about a week now. I'll try to address them tonight when I add a couple of little mods." Yeah, I saw that the author said he got rid of the scripted installer for those mods. I installed those mods (when they had the installers) like your guide said to do and I think they all installed OK... I take it there's no reason to reinstall them if they installed OK already with the previous version, since that (getting rid of the installer) seems to be the only change to those mods (according to the changelogs anyway). "I may added to many weapons by now. Some are bound to not play friendly with everything else." Personally, I think you already added enough weapons. The more I think about it, I think that what makes the most sense is perhaps to have fewer energy weapons - afterall, they are newer tech that probably would be more expensive and more difficult to manufacture than ballistic weapons. Take into consideration that the world is a post-nuclear ravaged wasteland... I think there should be fewer energy weapon options available. They should also be "overall" more powerful weapons too than the ballistic weaponry, since they are more state of the art weaponry. Also, if they have some kind of really cool specialized energy discharge feature/effect that makes it fun to use. So taking that into consideration, I hope that whatever energy weapons you do add help to keep the gameplay balanced and add rather than subtract from the higher-level gameplay (since I think that energy weapons should be more catered to a stronger high-level gameplay than a strong low-level gameplay). Whatever is added, overall I hope that it makes the game either more challenging where the game is normally overly easy and a little less challenging where the game is too difficult in an unbalanced or nonsensical way... and rewards smart/resourceful/experienced (or upper-level) gameplay. The idea about upper-level gameplay is that once you have maxed out your character it's kind of nice to think that you are so skilled and experienced that that, plus your hard-to-come-by or outrageously expensive equipment is kickass and makes you a supreme force not to be reckoned with, yet not totally invincible either. But, you don't want to feel that way when you are just starting out and still low-level or even mid-level, because that's lame. That's my take on adding content to the game. Edit: I did see a cool-looking Yuki mod that makes more miscellaneous items into usable weapons. Like wrenches and rakes. I don't know if there's anything unbalanced about the way the mod works, but it sounds like a cool concept. Afterall, a lot of tools and hard or sharp or pointy objects can really be used as weapons.

Does the new version of ENB do anything to improve the way ENBoost works? (newest version being v0.263, versus the last version v0.249)

I have the full STEP Extended installed (which includes EBT and the STEP Extended Patch) and I also have Skyrim Immersive Creatures installed. When I ran the EBT installer, it used the "dD-DG-DB-Immersive Creatures EBT Patch.esp" file instead of the "dD-Dragonborn-Dawnguard-EBT Patch.esp" file. The instructions for STEP Extended Patch say not to install "dD-Dragonborn-Dawnguard-EBT Patch.esp". I'm guessing it says this because the changes from that patch are merged into the STEP Extended Patch already. Problem is, the STEP Extended Patch does not include the changes done specifically for SIC. Would placing the "dD-DG-DB-Immersive Creatures EBT Patch.esp" plugin after the "STEP Extended Patch.esp" (so that the SIC patch changes overwrite STEP Extended Patch changes) work properly, or are there more things to consider? I appreciate any help you can offer. Thank you.

Oops, lol. You are right. Thanks for clearing that up.

Question about SMAA: Do the settings in the ini preset files (i.e. "high.ini") work against the settings in SkyrimPrefs.ini or do they have to be modified to match those in SkyrimPrefs.ini in order to not counteract them? Nothing in the guide mentions anything about the settings that are actually in the SMAA ini presets. If anything, the guide basically seems to imply that changing the ini file settings for SMAA is an advanced process. It's concerning because there are many settings in there that seem to resemble settings in the SkyrimPrefs.ini and I'm concerned that they may be overwriting those settings... like "fGrassStartFadeDistance" or "iMaxAnisotropy", for example. Is it right to leave them alone... or should they be modified to reflect the desired settings that are actually in SkyrimPrefs.ini?

A request - the file descriptions for performance and standard explain which types of textures (like Exterior Normals) are 1024 and which are 2048 (or whatever sizes they are). In other words, how is performance defined and how is standard defined?

These instructions make no sense: "The Cleaned Dawnguard ESM mod should be placed between Dawnguard and Unofficial Dawnguard Patch in Mod Organizer's left pane." The same can be said for the similar line at the end of the instructions for Hearthfires and Dragonborn. What doesn't make sense is that once you quit out of TES5Edit and save the changes to the .ESM file it changes the file in the data directory. So when you look at the left panel of MO, all you see is the same "Unmanaged: Dawnguard" entry. The instructions make it seem like the "Cleaned Dawnguard ESM" is a separate entry/mod in MO, but it's not. You can't place it between Dawnguard and Unofficial Dawnguard Patch... because it is Dawnguard. Or... am I doing something wrong? Makes no sense to me.

EssArrBee - Where were would Bethesda game modding be without you? You are the man! Thank you. :)

When you include Russel, can you mention in the forum the changes to other mods that have to be done as a result? Like Willow, I've seen a bunch of other mods that need patches for them to work together properly. Yuki gameplay tweaks - awesome. The ones you already included make the game a lot better. :)

Is it the same author of "Animated Fan", "Collision Mesh Overhaul WIP", or "Ragdoll Overhaul - ULTIMATE"? I still have those 3 mods installed - any reason to remove them?

IMPACT looks like the best one of those because it adds some really cool visuals - greatly looking forward to the inclusion of that one. While Destruction Overhaul looks interesting because it creates the ability to change your surroundings by using weapons, it also kind of worries me that irreversible damage to scenery can be done. :)

So, in other words, you can delete them if you like because they aren't used. But, like EssArrBee stated, they are backups. If I were you I would keep them in the Optionals folder that MO creates for them instead of deleting them. Here's why: the guide changes. New mods get added sometimes and sometimes mods are removed from the guide. When this happens, sometimes you have to go into other mods that are already installed and move previously optional .ESPs back out so that they are used due to the changes. Also, anytime you have to update a merged patch you need to have the ESPs in the all the mods that are part of that patch that get merged in the normal place. Otherwise, you're going to have to re-install the mods (if you no longer have those ESPs because you deleted them).

I don't know if you checked the forum for the Crossbow mod, but a bunch of people in that forum are mentioning something about "deleting the worldpspace entry" using FNVEdit in order to correct the FPS drop issue. Many people have mentioned Goodsprings as an area where FPS is an issue (amongst some other areas) - that's good because it should be easy to check being that it's at the beginning of the game.

Yeah - seemed strange to me too, but I noticed in the mod's forum that a bunch of people were commenting about it. You might want to check that out to help you with your mod testing.

OK good! That's reassuring to know. :) I don't like to "borrow" any of Doc Mitchell's stuff - makes me feel like an ungrateful *****. lol Also, I noticed something in the comments on the "Crossbow for the Wasteland" mod. A bunch of people were mentioning how using that mod brings their FPS down a lot in certain areas on the game. Have you noticed that yourself to be an issue?

One thing about all the weapons though... OK, I understand the weapons in "Gun Runners Arsenal" are spread around the wasteland to various enemies and containers/locations through "GRA - Right to Bear Arms". And then "Couriers Stash Integration" does this for the DLC weapons instead of giving them all to you at the beginning of the game. Weapons of the New Millenia adds a bunch of weapons and distributes them around the wasteland too. I just realized that the other Millenia weapons (not the retextures, but the completely new weapons) that are not in the WNM pack, but as separate mods all say that they are in various places in Doc Mitchell's house, but they say nothing about finding them in other places around the wasteland or on enemies. I don't like the idea of Doc Mitchell having a gigantic arsenal of one-of-a-kind weapons that are found no where else. Maybe I'm wrong though - maybe they are also distributed around the wasteland along with the other WNM weapons. Are they? If not, I think I'm going to leave those ones out of my game installation.

Sweet - I saw a bunch of those energy weapons mods (the ones that you listed) on the Nexus before. I wasn't sure which ones were good quality or bad or which ones weren't balanced properly for the game or distributed properly around the wasteland or whatever. I trust your good judgment in that, which is why I wait for such things to be published in your guide. :)

Nice - sounds like a plan man. IMPACT and Destruction Overhaul sound very interesting too.

Honestly, I haven't really played the game much - I've mainly been modding it and waiting for some of the best mods to be integrated. At this point I'm about to finally play, I think. But, from what I gather, not a lot of non-bullet weapons have been redone or added in through mods. It seems as though we have an amazing assortment of bullet weapons to choose from already. How about some more energy or melee or explosives or something maybe? (flamer is good) Millenia's weapons are spectacular, but he seems to focus on the real life bullet weapons.

After reading Drumber's response, I was led to believe that the duplicate textured races are a FCO issue (not NVR3). His response about the female lobotomite playable race was a little confusing though, because what he said led me to think that even the female lobotomite playable race should be showing a duplicate texture of something else. In my situation, it doesn't show any texture - just a pink absence of texture... Perhaps if/when he actually adds a texture in for that it will no longer be pink. I'm just happy that it supposedly won't affect the NPCs at all, because I read somewhere that even though they are rare in the game, there are some female lobotomite NPCs somewhere. Ah, I was wondering exactly what the deleting of the '00' records was for.