TechAngel85

Quick update: I've been working on the FOMOD for a few hours. It's going to take some time because I'm testing as I go, but it's coming along smoothly so far. I do need some information though... The ESPs, are they standalone or dependent on other mods? For example, I know the sortable ESP needs a mod that sorts the inventory; however, will using it without one of these third part mods cause issues? I need to know so I'll know if I need to put in some warnings. Is the main ESP weighted soul gems or weightless? It would seem if you the sortable option then you're stuck with either weighted or weightless (whichever this ESP includes) because you can only use one ESP at a time. There is no information on this on the mod page...in fact, there is very little information about the ESP files. TIA!

The FOMOD that I could create would cover all possible options and combinations. It will just be a time consuming project. I'm off this weekend and planned to do some work around the site. I might just get started on this if no one else is planning on getting one out within the next week or so.

[spoiler]some text here[/spoiler]The tags will result in this: The spoiler tags will be parse until you post so when editing, you'll see everything from the tags to the text inside.

I currently only know the basics to FOMOD writing so I know not what that feature does or what situations it's used in. I know MO has been flaky about non-basic FOMOD scripts in the past so the ones I've written haven't been complex in any way to keep compatibility nearly guaranteed and issues to a bare minimum. In fact, the ones I've written should never break due to coding unless MO breaks the fomod installer unintentionally with one of its releases. With that said, I've gone over the files and am confident that a normal FOMOD can be created. I've already restructured some of the file tree, making it more organized; thus, making the FOMOD easier to write. The FOMOD I'm envisioning will be simple coding but several pages/screens long to help break up the magnitude of options for each gem, both empty and full. Each gem (petty, grand, black, lesser, etc) would have its own screen with the available options for each. Additionally, the glows and optional soul fragments would have their own screens with their options as well. It can be done. It will take a good deal of time to write though, but it can be done.

Is the STEP Fomod on the mod page outdated? I created that for STEP users to install the STEP recommended options only in a quick two click installation. That is the reason for the FOMOD that we host on the mod page. If it is outdated and not working, I can update it. I could fix the FOMOD that is on the Nexus page and incorporate the one I created for STEP users into it if the need is great enough. This is just a massive mod which results in a MASSIVE fomod to have to deal with and is the reason I opted to simply create a short and sweet FOMOD installer for the STEP users. If you want to install options other than the STEP recommended one then the FOMOD on the mod page will not work for you. It only has one option and that's it. EIDT: I take that back. I can't program in C# so I can't update that FOMOD. I'm curious at to why this can't be done with a regular FOMOD though. I might look into it this weekend.

Looks like some visual and performance comparisons are in order. If this works as I'd like it to then, adding this to STEP and eliminating the SDO esps will be perfect since they are the where SDO performance issues lie. I might have some time this weekend to do this while also testing DynDOLOD out.

UPSs are mainly used by businesses to give their servers time to properly shut down. Very few own them for personal use at home from my experience. Even the big techies I know that work in the industry don't use them at home. Just my two cents on that. On the options you've given I would go with: Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell. I have this CPU and I have yet to toss anything at it that significantly slows it down. You won't get much use out of the extra cores and hyperthreading of the i7 if you're not regularly running programs that can take advantage of these. The games you mentioned do not. Even most modern games will not use past 4 cores, i think. Go with Haswell because it's the newer generation which is more power efficient. It will be more powerful than previous generations when both are running at the same clock speeds and that is due to it's better design. Remember that more cores does not mean more power either. Intel has led over AMD for some time now. Motherboard. Unless you're going to be using the extra features of those motherboards, I recommend downgrading. At some point you have to ask yourself, "will I use this feature?" If that answer is anything but, "yes" then it's time to downgrade to a board that has all the feature you need and will still last for years to come. Something like the ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO or the ASUS Z87-PRO is all most gamers would ever really need. Both will save you an extra $80-$100 that you could be putting toward something else (nicer case, better video card, etc). Btw, I would totally recommend NVIDIA over AMD. Speaking mainly from a Skyrim standpoint and the experience from users I've observed on these forums over the time I've been here. NVIDIA is far less troublesome. Is there a reason you're leaning more toward one over the other?

This is interesting, thanks! With all ESPs my frame rate is about 44FPS. Just deactivating the campfire and tundra ESPs didn't do anything; however, deactivating all of them returned the frame rate to normal without any visual quality loss in that area. No SDO >> with SDO/no SDO esps active >> with SDO and SDO esps active I'd be interested to know how much of the SDO ESPs that DynDOLOD replaces. Is that information in the readme or would I need to dive into TES5Edit with this? If it's replacing all the giant campfires then that's one ESP we could eliminate. Just being able to use SDO without any of its ESPs with little to no visual quality loss would be ideal if DynDOLOD could replace most if not all of the SDO ESPs.

"Some mods already use a setting called "NeverFade", but this means a full detail model that is always active no matter the distance to the player. These neverfades are updated to a less demanding LOD model if one is available. LOD models or full models, these are turned off at a large distance as well." I'm curious if this fixes the issue with SDO and if it doesn't can it be made to? The issues I'm talking about is over on the SDO thread where certain nordic ruins cause massive frame rate drops when they are in the frame. Bleak Fall Borrow viewed from Helgen is an easy way to see this drop. I drop into the 30-40 FPS range on my very modern setup (i5 haswell, GTX 760).

I must admit... I am intrigued.

I agree. The instructions for this mod need to be more clear by simply saying which plugins to use and not use. For STEP, this would be to deactivate all the plugins and only use the Legendary plugin. Simple and sweet. The current instructions are far too wordy.

This information should all be in the TES5Edit Guide if it's not already!

The faster arrows I have no issue with. Some of those tweaks used to be in STEP at one point and I've quite missed them. From the descriptions, I wouldn't say I have an issue with any of the PLUS content and the changes make sense to better be consistent with the overall game and DLCs.

Sounds like the community banded together to get an improved version created. STEP will adopt it as soon as it's released on Nexus.

The mod is Core so the stat changes may be against mandate. We'll have to figure out if the changes those optionals in the PLUS version can be considered fixes or are more personal edits. From the descriptions they sound more like fixes but I haven't reviewed them in TES5Edit.

Refractive for Transparency will still be sound choices. It's vanilla but with refraction added. Those options make sense considering the swords are made out of transparent materials.

Has anyone bothered to do any light research on the scimitar? Googling it will bring up a wide variety of blade styles. However, Google "middle age scimitar" and you'll see more of the design of BSW than that of vanilla. More research resulted in many different styles from different regions. None looked like the vanilla blade. The vanilla style is rarely seen outside of movies or video games from what I can tell. In fact, most of the Google images of this style were either animated (drawn by hand or CGI) or "fantasy" swords not made for real combat. The BSW style and similar variations is mainly what you'll find when you see a real scimitar. Therefore, the BWS style is far more realistic than that of vanilla so I think it should be kept. I'll be keeping it in my install seeing I'm all about realism.

It's no different than what we're doing with Skyrim Performance Plus. We're only keeping it around for those that have extreme low-end systems. We'd only keep Double Cursor for those with low-end systems that can't run ENBs. Personally, I say get rid of both but I understand the reason for keeping both as well.

That is true; however, I'd only say yes to this if our minimum system requirements can't run ENB because you shouldn't even be running STEP if you don't meet those requirements. There is already at least one mod we do this for so having another shouldn't be a big deal.

That settles that then. I say we drop JoTN and simply use these. Included should be: AmuletsCircletsRings (SMIM option for now)Gamwich Retexture 512 (for baseline. Users can up them to the 1024 on they're own if they desire) Saerileth, Are you planning on making an all-in-one package that includes all option choices? FOMOD can accomplish this.

If, that be the case, I say we drop this one for 2.2.9.

I've been in contact with the author of Mature Skin to create a vanilla version as well as one that is compatible with FemFeet/XCE. I have heard back in a while though so I don't know if he/she decided to make it or not.

No, it's in the files from "Improved Closefaced Helmets -- Dragonborn Addon -- 0_9-15927-0-9" as imp_help_dbrn.esp

Since this is also clipping in a vanilla game, I've added a bug report on it for the USKP. You can help out by commenting and confirming it: https://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/tracdown/issue/15582-fogmist-clipping-with-water/

That's a massive update!