Shadriss

This won't be what you want to hear, but those are normal and correct. The LOD colors are slightly off from the full version of the trees, which is what creates that seeming visual mismatch. So on the plus side, you did things right. On the other side... yeah. *shrug* As Lexy mentioned, this is caused by the Havok Physics engine when the FPS of you game goes over 60. This is why, in the recommendations and in the install instructions, you are told to cap your framerate at 58 FPS instead of 60... even with a cap set, your FPS will go over that limit briefly. That noise is all the objects that use the physics engine colliding with each other. Set the cap in the nVidia Profile Inspector (as shown on the Prerequisites Page) or, if you simply have to have higher framerates, look into the Havok Fixes mod.

Wave off - Lexy's is NOT a STEP style guide. We very frequently diverge from vanilla, and the setup process is hardly the easiest either. I'm not sure there really is another guide that holds to STEP's ideal, but I can say for certain that Lexy's is definitely not it.

Balgruf Voice: That would be best. In seriousness though, I've not seen anyone else ever mention this problem, likely for the reason that most people don't use fast travel over short distances - they just hoof it, I'd guess. Obviously a vanilla issue, so nothing that can really be done. I didn't think about this before... are you using DynDOLOD? If not, you may want to consider it, as it may fix this issue. If you were initially, than I guess there really isn't anything to do about it...

We use the Uncapper only to allow for skills and the like to surpass vanilla values. Nothing has been altered, that I'm aware of, from the vanilla leveling curve. Experience removes XP gain from Skill Leveling, and uses events (discovery, quest completion, etc) to replace the XP that was provided by Skill Leveling, but the amount of XP from Player Level to Level has not been changed. I hope that makes sense to you... let me try it this way as well. The XP values needed to level your player character have not changed, only what it providing the XP - vanilla values are, to the best of my knowledge, still used. As to the other - I'm not sure how you got the impression we were trying to be consistent. The options and mods chosen are at the whims of her Dark Majesty Lexy - if she wants them to appear a certain way, that how she does'm. ;) It's a touch mad... but that's Lexy. As I understand it, the packs released will be thematic in nature - it should be easy to figure out which ones are released in which pack. That remains to be seen, of course, but so goes the plan I've heard. Best place to ask that is on Lexy's Discord server, in the #non-guide-mods channel. I know of a few people who have done exactly that, but I am not one of them, and this forum isn't the place to figure that out, as it's for support of the full and official guide, not custom versions of it. As with the previous person, best place to ask about that is on the Server... it should be possible, but more and smarter people than I will be able to help you out more in an area designed for those kind of questions. On a quick think through, I think it'd be relatively easy, but it would have to be a very deliberate process to make sure nothing was missed.

My answer remains unchanged, even so. I'd add in a recommendation to not fast travel, but since you already ruled that out as an answer... (that said, I don't do that, as I miss out on a lot of experience and the like when I do.)

No, there is no issue continuing to use the Luxor files - rumor has it that he is going to be re-releasing all of his stuff as a series of all-in-one packages, but for the moment, you're good continuing in that fashion. If the guide tells you to delete a file, delete it. Otherwise, leave it alone. Use 8.0... the instructions still work otherwise. Skills are capped by Player Level. Most content in the game, as we have it set up, isn't safe to do without followers until at least level 20, including Bleak Falls Barrow. I haven't seen anyone making any complaints about being overpowered... quite the opposite, in general. Despite the other answer you received, we don't really know when LOTD5 is coming. I've heard that it's in final testing, but that could still be another month or so. Then again, it could be tomorrow, for all I know. Either way, I'd update the guide to the most recent version anyways, as that will still be a lot less work to do when it releases... whenever that happens to be.

Love it, Lexy. Absolutely love it.

iNeed, Frostfall, and Campfire are all part of the Consistancy Patch you noted, and file that gets merged into Lexy's LOTD Consistency Patch. By not installing iNeed, the Survival File has a missing master, which then transfers into the LOTD Consistency Patches merged. So, in effect, you have two options: 1) Install iNeed, and turn it off... this is by far the easiest route. 2) Using the procedure in the Troubleshooting part of the guide, remove iNeed as a Master. You won't be able to proceed without doing one of the above - with a Missing Master error, your game will CTD on load.

SRLE hasn't been updated in forever, I don't think. You can do, in essence, the same processes through the new zMerge program (part of Mator's zEdit program), which will allow you to do both the merges and the ReLinker functionality as well. Means having to figure a few things out on your own, likely, but that's prob'ly the best way forward.

Since I can't think of any reason for you to be that far in the air to be able to see it in a normal situation, I wouldn't worry about it at all. From the steps you've taken, it would appear, to me, to be a vanilla engine related issue... I wouldn't call it a bug, per se, especially since I would imagine that, as you moved normally about, those trees would be reloaded anyways.

I'm not honestly sure when the last time that SRLE was worked on - not sure if it's being maintained or not.

I use a SFW version of the guide as well. The only changes you need to make are as follows... if it's not listed, you can go with the guide's setup: a) When available for a mod, use the non-nude versions (you have already done this). b) Locate, download, and install the Bijin Nevernude patch. You can place this at the end of the load order, after all merges have been completed but before any of the finishing line mods. c) After installing the TMB armors, go into the file structure and delete the Hide Armor folder - the author made a vary odd decision here in making the male version of it apply to females, and the result is... uncomfortable looking and decidedly non SFW. So far as the Khajit and Argonian mods, you can install the UNP versions as the guide recommends - the other changes I note above apply to them as well, as those mods are the skins only, not anything that will change them to nude versions. IIRC, you need Mystical Smithing (or whatever the perk is that allows you to temper enchanted items) to do anything with gold or silver... this was done to prevent a few exploits in the early-ish game, among other reasons. In other words... normal, expected. Learn to swing a hammer more. ;)

I'd add MSI gaming systems to that list. I bought one about six years ago, and it's still holding on pretty well.

That's an oddly specific number to be looking to reduce your count by - I take it there is a specific reason you need ~40 clear slots in your load order? If not, then I don't see any reason you'd need to do this.

OMEGA provides an MLU.ESP... so it's in there, just not under that name, per se. You think swords get a beating? Take a look at what happens to arrows - my Stealth archers have all had to go to Knight School (get it?) to learn some swordplay, and they all hate it. As to Valtheim, I've not heard anyone else having a problem, so it is likely related. IIRC, the original mod in LE (which, obviously, we're using) noted a patch in it's FOMOD... we can't use the patch, but it might give an idea in which direction to look.

You COULD do that. But WILL you do that... that's the real question. Sorry... the imp seems to be in charge of posting today.

The Guide Prayer: "Now I sit me down to mod, Hope I don't screw up somewhere, If the game should crash before I play, I'll not rage-quit and walk away." Or something like that. ;)

There are so many factors that now go into this, it's hard to say. Not just that the bandit has a dagger, but what material? Pretty sure Ranger armors are all leather, which doesn't provide a lot of protection against a lot of weapon types, dagger included. Light/Heavy doesn't matter as much anymore - it's not a pure numbers game. Material that the armor is made of is far more important. In short, you haven't screwed anything up (likely). It's not about Light vs. Heavy so much as it is leather/cloth vs metal. And "get gud" prob'ly applies a bit here as well. As the guide says - this ain't your father's Skyrim anymore. :) I posted this announcement on the Discord Server last night, forgot to post it here. So I'll just add on to Lexy's comment: Luxor has, for whatever reason, left the community. While he has left all of his FO4 work in place on the Nexus, he has somewhat inexplicably removed all of his LE/SSE works. A quick review by some of the guide Devs shows that everything of his we were using were texture replacers. This means that the (arguably) good news is that the only effect on the guide, currently, is that we don't have his textures. They can, for the moment, be safely skipped during guide installation with no other side effects. As Lexy has indicated, there will be replacements in the next guide update, so my personal recommendation is to wait for that before replacing them yourself, unless you really just can't wait that long. Other texture replacers in the guide still cover a great many of those same textures, so they won't be vanilla.

It'll be the missing masters. That's always a CTD at the point described. The rest of Bern's answer isn't wrong, but it's getting ahead of the actual problem at this point. Any time a master file is not installed/activated, the game WILL crash on load. You have two options here, realistically. Either clean out those masters from the files you noted using the instructions Bern directed you to, or download the files and use them. Honestly, I can't think of a reason no to have them in anyhow... both can be ignored/never recruited, so it's not like it impacts the gameplay over much, and it's far easier than cleaning a file of unwanted masters - especially if you've never done anything like that in xEdit before. Also, if this is your first installation of the guide, I would direct you to the guide's recommendation for all first-time installers: Install everything the first time, make sure it works, THEN start making alterations, additions, and deletions. Otherwise, it becomes a nightmare to troubleshoot for the guide devs and moderators.

Actually there is. https://github.com/deorder/mo2-plugins There's actually two plugins there - one is for hiding files that you merge together easily (not what you need) and the other allows you to sync profile mod lists. Obviously, you want the second one.

Including the script files? I've seen most people installing the script files as a mod through MO2, leaving only the DLL files in the main Skyrim directory.

I can't say I've ever heard of anything like that happening before... I'm wondering if, somehow, an overly aggressive AV did something there. Like... Terminator Aggressive. I'm am certain it wasn't anything MO2 or any of the tools did, so I honestly have no clue as to how that might have happened. All I can say is that I hope you kept all the downloads to make the re-installation easier... otherwise, that's another couple of days work to get through first.

How are you installing SKSE, and do you have any mods that may be touching those files somehow?

If you mean under the Left Pane, then there isn't an issue. Technically, Skyrim and Update ESM are not "mods" or DLC, so wouldn't list them. As long as both files are listed in the Right Pane in MO2 (the actual load order), there there is no problem here.

The DLLs for SKSE go in the main directory for Skyrim... IE, the same place that your Skyrim.EXE file is located.