mothergoose729

I use this mod with glorious grass and ultimate lush overhaul and it looks absolutely amazing. The few flaws in this mod are far outweighed by the benefits. Some of the comments on the first page are misleading... very few of the grasses are green. My experience playing several hours with it, they fit in very well and merge quite nicely with the other environments. Its a part of my essential mod list now, just really great stuff.

I used MO to unpack the mod and that fixed any problems I ever had. I much prefer it to vanilla or HQ maps.

I have been using AOS with improved combat sounds, better bow sounds (its a simple overwrite), better weapon sheath sounds, and then a couple more from core and extended STEP and it works nicely. AOS overwrites mods that change combat sounds but the author hasn't fully implemented combat sounds yet, only fixed a couple in game bugs. The bow shot sounds for AOS, according to the author, are taken from real audo of 15th century bow shots, but its really loud and very distracting. IMO the step mod that covers the same thing does a great job. As I said before, the AOS combat sounds haven't been covered yet so improved combat sounds is a definite winner for quality. The only mods from step I exclude audio wise would be the SoS mods and improved animal footstep sounds, everything else is either preferential or partially compatible and sounds great. One more note for STEP 2.2.8, the RW2 sounds with the compatiability patch for AOS from michealw fits in really well, but the waterfall and general water noises are really very loud. It is much more realistic, and I like it a lot, but many people on the AOS page have complained about it.

So this is what you have been working on ;). Great mod, really happy you have taken it up again and improved it. Thank you.

Not very helpful, but I have given up searching the forum using the search feature. I use google, and type something like "STEP forum (search queury)". I usually double check against the STEP forum search feature just in case, but in my experience the google search has always been both more reliable and has returned more specific and better results.

I can hear John Lennons "Imagine" playing in the background as I read your post lol <3 I think any attempts by the government to control or curb the flow of information is a doomed and misguided effort. Not to mention more than a little bit ironic, given the the US governments double standard about intellectual property and privacy :p. Its impossible to stand in the way of progress. Like it or not the world is becoming more and more "data free", with all the consequences there in. I see it as a good thing. Creativity won't die because of thepiratebay, and people will continue to write software even if nobody pays for them (although I do agree with william that piracy is not a good thing). I don't know the specifics of the UK law, but in general I can't understand a ban on peer2peer websitse. It has perfectly legitimate uses, and the technology itself it no deviant, merely the common application of it. I personally believe that coporations can do an awful lot to protect themselves, and take advantage of new technologies at the same time. Netflix and Hulu plus are so convenient and cheap, that I would much rather pay for them than pirate movies. Just easier, I can stream it to my playstation or tablet, can't do that on thepiratebay.Â

A sound card is a good investment, but only if you have high end audio equipment or software to take advantage of it. It is true that sound cards can process audio freeing up CPU resources, but only in about a handful of game titles ever, and it never made much of a difference even then. The built in audio in motherboards is actually really good. Don't get me wrong, an Asus Xonar or a turtle beach card is definitely better, but you won't notice the difference in audio quality unless you have some very good headphones. The main advantage to these sound cards is for audio recording and other similar applications, not necessarily audio fidelity (if you are really serious about audio quality you would get a high end receiver anyway). If you are going to get a sound card, you should invest in a really good one, and you should have a really good reason for spending 150+ dollar on it if you do. As for a CPU cooler, if you aren't going to overclock, then you won't need one. I have been building computers for a long time, and recently I have become more and more accepting of stock coolers. The average intel or AMD stock cooler is pretty quite, handles heat well enough under typical load, and best part of all, not extra cost :). Just keep all that in mind, don't spend money on stuff if you don't have too. If you want to waste some money on something you don't need, buy a really nice computer case. Nothing more satisfying than that new computer smell in an all aluminum chassy :D.

If I wanted to compress and resize only the color maps in a directory, but I wanted to leave normal maps/ect untouched, what options would I select in the DDSopt menu? If its not to much trouble, what would be the command line argument to do the same thing? Thank you.

So happy to see you back on the forums and doing great work as always :D. I haven't tried your landscape pack, going to give it a try. Just based on the screenshots, I noticed it has a much softer look, with a great emphasis on lighter colors for contrast instead of dark ones. I have been harping to anybody who will listen to me that this is a better way to do things. Thanks again for more great content.

I wasn't aware of the string problem. I haven't notice any issues yet but that doesn't mean they aren't there. I just found it interesting how much the tool could pack it in. If you can reduce the file even by 10 more megbytes than that helps folks with their download. I assume you know what you are doing though :p.

I wonder why USKP hasn't touched this one yet? Seems like a no brainer to me.

I have the mod in my load order. I'll report any issues if and when I come across it in my play through. Based on what swift fox posted though, if it makes the "unlock bug" come back, I think that is a fair trade off for the animation personally. It did always seem weird to me that there was no animation.

Awesome stuff sir! Thanks a lot, been using the mod and its great. I don't notice its there most of the time... which is how it should be. I think I used the less saturated textures or something. Do want to note that I was able to optimize some of the textures in the skyrim BSA further with DDSOPT. I used BSAOPT I managed to get the 100mb BSA for skyrim down to a little over 30mb. Just wanted to make you aware of the tool, the secret seems to be in what it does to meshes. Again, great work. Love each update. Thanks again.

Does USKP do the same thing as this mod? Whats the problem with using them both?

Good post. 100% agree. Alaa thanks a lot for coming on these forums and helping us better understand the mod.Â

The XCE textures are much better than vanilla. The optional normal maps aren't required if you have the HDDLCs though.

Hm. The improved close faced helm needs some work. The guard helmets have holes in them but their faces aren't there.

Appreciate spock thanks a bunch.

Thanks for these patches. Great stuff. Mind breaking them up on a mod by mod basis? I personally don't like lanterns of skyrim. Thanks :)

Ah thanks william. Yes, haswell is the one one you want. My mistake.

Where do the most recent discussions about mods take place? The last post in this one is more than two months old. If I am repeating old news I apologize. The step wiki doesn't aknowledge it and neither does this thread.

The mod was recently updated with a FOMOD installer. Combinations that weren't available before now are, I believe. You can choose between rough hair or straight hair, 1k or 2k, and less shiny or more shiny normal maps (there might be some other options, that is what I remember). I don't believe the 1k rough hair with less shiny normal map was an option before, and I think that probably fits the closest to vanilla. For SAS reasons, and for thoroughness, might be worth discussing.

If you get a westmere, aka 4xxx processor, then you need the 1150 socket not the 1155. In the US, the cheaper westmere i5 are only about 30$ more than the cheaper ivy bridge i5. Except for some changes to AVX and a minor bump in clock speed and IPC, they are the same though, so again buy according to price/performance.

Don't buy one part at at time. Nothing wrong with your build, but you should save up and get it all at once. Prices get better over time, so parts you want now might be cheaper at a later date Parts of a computer don't do you any good, so it makes no difference whether they come in all at once or piece meal. The warranty for parts start ticking away the moment you buy them. You opportunity to RMA for a full refund likewise. Having a thousand dollars worth of computer parts in your closet is not usually a good idea. It would be pretty unfortunate if something happened to one of them before you got all your parts and put them in your box. A couple small critiques on your build: The LGA 2011 socket is a performance socket. Its meant for the super high end builds. Stuff like 4 graphics cards and quadruple channel memory and two CPUs on a single motherboard. The LGA 1155 mainstream socket is much cheaper and more affordable and performs identical in all applications doing just about everything. The i7 CPU have a technology called hyper threading in them, which is really cool and very beneficial in some applications. It won't help you game any better at all though, and you pay about a 100 dollar premium for it. I would recommend one of the i5 p processors, specifically a westmere one if you can get it, although ivy bridge is almost just as good. The p series processors are the same as the regular ones, just a low power consumption and cheaper because they don't include on die graphics. You are getting a beasty nvidia GPU so you won't need and it therefore shouldn't have to pay for it. I would also take a look at the AMD graphics equivalents for your nvidia choice. It doesn't matter which brand you choose, but you should try and get the one that is better priced. Try a R9 290, or 280x. A 7950 would be worth looking at too.

I think the argument there is "its a very small problem that can be ignored". That is perfectly reasonable stance to take. For what its worth I agree with you. This part of your post really bothered me though. I realize this isn't the place to address this kind of thing and it probably won't be well received. I have felt this kind of attitude on the forums before though, and aside from being a very unfortunate stance to take, its also simply not true. What I heard communicated there is that the status of the mod is not up for debate, because people whose opinions matter more already settled it. That may not be what you were trying to say, and I don't think it's actually your opinion on the matter. Nevertheless, that is what was communicated in that post in this context. I can't help but feel like the goal there was to shut down any debate on the topic. Even if the opinion reached previously is better reasoned, I have to question why anybody would want to do that. It certainly benefits STEP and the forums to encourage open ended debate indefinitely about all aspects of STEP and everything that is done here. After all, that is the only way the project can improve.  It is also not true that the status of the mod is considered to be set in stone, and the fact that other people have weighed in on it before doesn't change that. A hypothetical example; if it turned out that there was a fatal flaw in the mod that caused incredibly terrible things to happen, and it just hadn't been discovered before, would the status of the mod still remained unchanged? If a brand new member or a senior staff person brought it to all of our attention, would that make a difference as to how that information was received? I would hope not. I think sometimes an alternative, unpopular view point can be perceived as threatening. Its not threatening though, its a very good thing. We should all play devils advocate every chance we get and try and throw a wrench in everything. If you use the scientific method as a model then nothing is set in stone. The most well established theories can be debunked tomorrow by an upstart teenager in a college dorm. Indeed, that is often exactly how it is done :). Â