TechAngel85

Changed mod group to patches.

I agree. Installing main file and ELFX patch.

Just drop it from testing, imo. It's not a big deal that it's missing as it doesn't add anything to the game. One could even argue it was left out on purpose as to not mentions the Blades too soon in the story because there's little to no reference to them until you get to that part in the storyline.

Created wiki mod page. I vote to accept to and drop the other Bellyaches mod we're using.

Mod updated with an option to install only the normal maps for users wanting to use the 4K diffuses from xilamonstrr's mod while still getting the improved specular from this mod.

So we're also hiding the interface and scripts? I haven't fully followed this.

Mod is up:

Discussion topic: Bellyaches Animal and Creature Pack Revamp by Step Modifications Wiki Link This is a revamp of Bellaches Pack with cleaned textures, upscales to better match HD DLC sizes, and many corrections to specular maps. Texture sizes are meant to resemble vanilla, however, a new 4K option is provided for the mammoths; since they are such large animals.

That is very curious. It must have been a miss along the way. I don't remember it being dropped for any reason. We'd have to dig through the changelogs to be sure. Merged topics

I personally prefer this one and will be keeping it in my load order regardless of the vote. This plant has been a pet-peeve of mine for a very long time. This mod is the best I've seen in terms of improvement. Yes, it could be more full, but I found it didn't really bother me while I was running around.

I still haven't heard back from that author. I have given him more than enough time so I will upload them myself. Possibly get around to it sometime tomorrow.

I will have a look when I'm able. I'm currently getting all the mods updated from downtime. Maybe I will be in a position to look at it sometime tomorrow.

I know there has been discussion of this mod being dropped and replaced by MCM Helper, which is already in the Guide. I'm not sure there are any mods remaining that utilizes FISS. Has there been an majority vote to do this yet?

For some reason I think Intel CPUs perform better vs AMD on this front. I haven't regen my LODs in forever, but I remember getting much better times vs Z. I could be misremembering, though, as it was quite a while ago.

That quite beautiful! Thanks for sharing!

I agree that is what sparked most of the confusion that lead to the frustration. I also agree with the others that it is, indeed, out of the ordinary to not use the button to download with your mod manager. What can I say...I'm a libra. However, I wouldn't really agree with you that you are following the Guide, as designed. You've already stated that you are adjusting your current mod list to the Guide and are already swapping out mods on the fly. As I mentioned before, this is not how the Guide was designed for use. What you are doing may not be that more 'advanced', but nonetheless it is different vs the Guide's intended use. I'll explain. We expect users to install the Guide from start to finish, starting from scratch, and no deviations during the process (if you already have mods installed, that's fine just deactivate them and move them in place instead of reinstalling). This process starts with our System Setup Guide and ends when a Guide is 100% installed. Once the Guide is confirmed 100% working, new users can just jump in and play. More advanced users can, at this point, start their deviations. This design allows the Guides to be flexible, while still pleasing most user groups. This is also why Z was insistent on you starting over from scratch during some of the back and forth, which ended up being the manual downloads hiccup. But why design the Guides to be used this way? Such design ensures consistency across the board for us and the user, whether they're completely new to modding or an advanced user. I'll go deeper into consistency and why it matters. First, Guide Curators have installed their Guide dozens of times during development. They/we know the ins and outs and exactly what users should expect when installing the Guides, as instructed. When all our users are installing the Guide in the exact same manner, Curators are far better equipped to help users, quickly and efficiently. This can usually be achieved with minimal interaction and confusion since they/we know where the user has errored or what part of the Guide needs to be fixed. Any deviation from this, will make it much harder for Curators to track down user issues because they must first get on the same page as the user that's deviating. I hope that better explains why, from our perspective, you are not following the intended process. These are the main reasons I said it would be best to consider you as a non-Guide user, even though you may still be using it. It's not a positive or negative consideration. It helps us to better help you knowing this information; thus, knowing to expect some deviation in your case. Nothing more, nothing less. I apologize if that came off in any negative way. I hope with that explanation you may understand how the Guides are designed equally for new users and advanced users. New users simply follow our instructions without deviations and they will result in a wonderfully modded and vanilla-like experience. Advance user can go beyond the Guide and change things up as they please knowing that they have a solid foundation to build upon. For advances users the Guides are just a starting point, or a "close to the end" point. Since we patch out the entire Guide, advanced users only need to create one additional, custom CR patch for their additions. Additionally, our patches can be used as a starting point to be built upon and customized, as well. I always say, you can do anything you want...if you know what you're doing. So the only reason you're seeing it your view, see because it seems you weren't understanding how we meant for the Guides to be installed. You're rolling your own process over there, which is totally fine as long as you know it will be more difficult for us to help you regarding your changes. Especially if you're swapping out mods since we may not be familiar with them. So to quote you, "I hope I've explained 'our side' of this better". Trust when I say that our process has been refined down to what it is from a decade of revisions. Yes, we may expect users to follow our process, but in the end it still caters to a very wide range of users. Following our process is the only real caveat to it. If you're talking about more patches for more compatibility, well that would require dozens of plugins to match the various combinations of which users could 'pick and choose'. We went down that road once and it was a maintenance nightmare. It's the reason our Patches are now 'all or nothing'; still offering some choice for some of Kry's mods. If you're talking about us combining our current Patching into a FOMOD, that's possible assuming the Curators want to do it.

@mooit I understand you consider yourself a more advanced modder and that's fine. However, you're consistently running into issues because you are trying to adjust your current mod list to the Guide, which I would only suggest an advanced user performing because there are a lot of changes you'll likely have to make. In any case, this is not how the Guide was intended for use nor how it was designed. You may certainly use it as you are, but doing so with the knowledge it's an advanced task and you will not end up with the same results. We tend to recommend that users first follow the Guide exactly and 100% before adding their own twists. This ensures you have the Guide set up probably and allows us to streamline our support (since everyone is doing the same thing; aka following the Guide). With that said and from this point on, I believe we are going to treat you as a non-Guide user because you are essentially doing your own thing and it's causing a lot of unnecessary frustration on both sides. As for the Guide Patches and due to your choices, you will not be able to use any of them unless you clean them of certain masters that you will be missing. Please ensure you create your own CR patch to ensure your mods are patched before you play the game.

Moved to correct forum

This topic was an interesting read, but this comment is the only one that really peaked my interest. I'm very curious what security reason you have for manual vs using the mod manager? As an IT guy at heart, that isn't making any sense to me unless your VPN will not work with the feature. If it's for malware, well, your computer should be scanning anything that it's downloading so whether that is in Downloads or in the MO folder, the files should be scanned the same. Very curious! (our thinking face looks angry...)

He probably would.

I've heard much of the same about archives and FO4. I still use BAE for all my extractions, but I'm not re-archiving files either.

I just wanted to reiterate that we're only using the meshes from ELFX for their fixes. ELFX Fixes is already in the Guide for the meshes, as well. We disable the plugins because we don't want the lighting changes since we using RS and Luminosity (currently)...you should have seen then in the Foundation mod section, if you're following our instructions. If you want to use the ELFX lighting, you'll have to forego our lighting setup and roll your own because ELFX Shadows will conflict badly with our setup (too many lights).

They're probably are doing it to skirt Nexus' new ToS around their obsessive need to keep files and not letting authors remove them. I know it's for their Collections, but they need a better design than the all or nothing approach they went with. I've already stated a couple times that if Nexus insists on keeping broken and bugged versions of my mods/mods I manage and users are grabbing old files via Collections, then I will send every single last user to their support. Since I no longer support the files as the author but Nexus is insistent upon keeping them, they can deal with the fallout. They'll change their approach if enough authors do the same and they're constantly flooded with support requests. In all honestly it's the Collection author's fault for not keeping the Collection updated, but the issue with Nexus remains so that is what I'm doing. Nexus can redirect them to the Collection's author, if they desire.

It depends on the mods you did install. The colored bars on the left side of the mod table tells you what mods are required for the L&W Patch (see the table legend at the beginning of the mod section of the Guide). If you skipped any of them, you'll have to do your own patching. If you installed all of them, then you should be able to install the Patch without issue.

Are you modding LE or SE? Sounds like SE, but you're in an LE thread forum.