mikegray

I'm curious to hear what other folks have to say about DA. Though I haven't used it for a while, I HAVE used the latest version, and it's a sweet concept. However, I've had some stability issues - even though it is in theory supposed to be actually MORE stable than a normal die-revert-to-last-save. I seemed to get more CTDs than I liked, and my characters often ended up in a sort of weird paralyzed state after blacking out - though I eventually found some settings that mostly kept that from happening. Also: Although it's fun to wake up in some odd place and go about putting your life back together again, it can get old too. In difficult (usually boss) fights, I'd often prefer to die and revert to my pre-boss-fight save for a another try with different tactics. Tramping through the same dungeon 5 times to get back to that one tricky patch can wear on the nerves ...

About those fTreeLoadDistance= values: I seem to be seeing that raising those values over vanilla can cause some pretty significant stuttering - ultra being 75000, high 50000. Sheeson - I'm I understand ing correctly that we should be going all the way up to 150000 - i.e. 2x ultra? I seem to recall getting some nasty stutters from numbers like that, but maybe my wires are crossed ...

Have any of you guys tried out CACO's rudimentary eat and sleep function? I'm trying to reduce my level of complexity (while adding things like CACO ... sigh!), and I'm wondering how much I'd lose if I used this instead of iNeeds.

Nice - this time it worked. After two, complete 24 hour waits, it kicked in like a champ. Yesterday I SLEPT 2 x 24 hours, to no effect - so maybe waiting is different from sleeping ... Now I just have to get the lights turned up bright enough in game to actually illuminate anything ... (The ICROL ones, I mean, not yours.) (Also: Why, exactly, do I like doing this?? Why can't I just play the *#%§ game?!)

Whoops. With the DynDOLOD script that overwrites the native ICROL script (immersivecontentlightmasterparent.pex) the ICROL lights don't turn on at night. Riverwood remained dark until I moved ICROL downstream of DnDOLOD, letting the original script take control. (New game, btw.)

Urgh. I'm not sure what was going on, and I read your request only after a few more adventures. Every attempt to re-generate my stuff ended up in a mess - though I never got that partricular problem again. I finally solved my problems by (a) completely reinstalling DynDOLOD, (b) completely re-installing TES5Edit (in particular, I think some files hanging around in my script folder were causing trouble - and the easiest solution was simply to nuke the whole installation and start from scratch) - then generate a completely new setup. Now we're all good! Note: From my experiences so far, I'd say that installing and "first-timing" DynDOLOD is actually pretty easy. But figuring out how to carry out a clean update is pretty tricky! About the new glow thing: IT works, and it's GREAT! One question: is there some way to sort of "turn up the volume" on the glow thing? I coc'd up to the High Hrothgar entrance in hopes of getting an eyeful of Whiterun by night - but I could just barely see the lights (clear night, btw). I tried switching to a darker nights version of my ENB (Vividian), but that actually made the lights dimmer. (Which I actually kind of expected ... )

Did I read somewhere that you aren't supposed to activate DnDOLOD until leaving Helgen dungeon, even if you use Live Another Life? I just started a new playthrough - my first in YEARS without a perk mod by T3nd0! - and chose the camping option (right next to the dungeon). I had DnyDOLOD activated and got a nasty z-fighting effect right on the ground in front of me, followed by a CTD. Deactivating DynDOLOD fixed it. (Note: I haven't played any farther yet, so it's possible that there is simply something wrong with my DynDOLOD build.) P.S. Nope. That wasn't the problem. I entered and exited the Helgen cave a couple time, then activated, still got the weird flicker effect. I'll rebuild from scratch. It's about time for lunch anyway ...

Can't wait! I've been away from Skyrim for quite a while, and Mator Smash seems to be one of the new and intriguing things that have cropped up since then. Hence, a question: Is this something that we mod USERS will be able to use right out of the box, or is it something that won't work without input from mod authors about aspects of their mods that can and cannot be messed with by other mods?

I was just reading a Nexus thread about Ultimate Combat, where a noticed a message from Fore saying that he is about to introduce a new version of FNIS that will be, like, super-powerful and stuff but will also cause severe compatibility issues. I was intrigued. You guys know anything about this?

Ah - sorry, wasn't very clear. That's my "patches" category, left-pane Mod Organizer. The stuff in this category typically loads at the very bottom of my load order. I posted it since I was wondering if I maybe had activated a billboard set that I shouldn't have activated, or had maybe activated them in the wrong order. (Specifically: First DynDOLOD mod files, then Vanilla Billboards, then STEP Texture Compilation, then SFO 2.3 Billboards, then DnyDOLOD output.) I'll see if I can figure out which trees are popping in - though it's VERY hard to tell! They're typically a long way away and grouped with other trees.

Say, about pop-in (as opposed to, umm, 3drop-in?): If I'm still seeing (a few) trees springing into existence when I reach the bridge at Riverwood as I walk up the hill from Whiterun, is that a sign that I've messed up my billboards? Most of the trees just turn more 3d as I approach, but a FEW - typically farther off and sort of clumped with larger ones - seem to appear out of nowhere. Note: It happens so quickly that I haven't been able to figure out exactly what I'm seeing. To make sure, this is what my load order looks like:

Cool, Manny. And yeah, I think effective savegame cleaners are some of the most impressive developments in Skyrim modding over the last couple years. Have you tried using the active plugins feature?? (Kinda sucks to say this, but one of the mods I'm looking at replacing is Lanterns of Skyrim. No problems with it - I just wanted to try out the beta for a brand new edition of Claralux ... )

Whoa - thanks for he heads up, Sheson! I actually have a custom cooled setup with a 3x 180mm fan-rad - so I can definitely crank up the cpu. Just didn't realize there was any reason to do so ...

Say - Have any of you guys ever used this tool BEFORE removing mods from a savegame? I have a level 26 character that I was playing back in April before I shipped out from Windhelm to Thedas, and thence to Novigrad. Now that I'm back I'd like to try picking up the same character but removing a few mods I'd got tired of and updating quite a few other ones. (In particular: Sands of Time, thanks man. You're one cool dude, and I enjoyed it while it lasted. But you're just a little too bonkers for me.) One way to do that is just to yank all the old stuff, fire up the game in a quiet spot, wait for a while, make a save, exit, run the cleaner on the new save, fire up again, wait some more, exit, check with cleaner. I actually did that, and the savegame looks like its ready to go. However, the cleaner ALSO offers a list of ACTIVE plugins in which you can do the following: - Delete selected mod forms - Delete selected mod scripts - Delete created forms - Delete created scripts I'm wondering whether I should try running some of these options on the plugins I want to remove BEFORE I remove them. Anyone have any experience here?? I can't seem to find much information on this part of the tool, and most all the google hits I'm getting are from LoversLab. (Mind you, the folks and LL seem to be REALLY good at this kind of stuff, but it's a site I'd prefer not to use just now.)

Quick question: I chose the "high" preset when I ran DynDOLOD, and my output folder is 1.5gb in size. Is that more or less correct? Background: I'm a brand-new, baby DynDOLOD'ner. I'd been planning to try it out for a long time but what with having a life and taking several months away from Skyrim to play some other games, I'm only now getting around to it. (Besides: I'd already sacrificed one child to Sheson, and it took a while to cook up a new one.) I'm running STEP Core with quite a few gameplay additions (PerMa, CWO, WareZones15, Genesis, Trade Routes - stuff like that) but VERY few things that should change graphics. The only things that come to mind are (a) Pure Weathers, (b) Vividian Vivid (quality preset), © SFO 2.3, (d) a beta version of ClaraLux15, (e) DynaVision. In installing STEP, I've stuck to the performance versions and 1k texture files - including STEP optimized vanilla textures. Obviously, SFO 2.3 needs its own billboards, which I have installed so that they overwrite the STEP Texture Compilation. DnyDOLOD output took about 30 minutes to compile (using "shift-OK" when I started TES5Edit). So far, it seems to be running quite nicely. Originally, I seemed to be getting heavy stuttering, but that seems to have resolved itself. BTW, I'm running a pretty powerful system: Skylake i7 (no OC), two r9 290xs in Crossfire (20% OC), Samsung 850 EVO SSD (1TB!), 16g RAM.

Yeah, I think you're right. Once I activate all the mods in any given category, I can switch to the <checked> view and move the entire block around until the priority numbers make sense. And actually, there are so many mods to update or replace and so many other things to fuss with that I might as well just put in the elbow grease.

NOTE: This is a blatant cross-post from the MO support-thread on Nexus. If that's a no-no feel free to chastise me. Severely. (My aunt just read some book about monochromatic color-schemes, where she learned that being chastised is lots of fun.) After posting on Nexus I got to thinking that this might be the better place to get some qualified tips. So: I spent about 6 months away from Skyrim (Dragon Age Inquisition and Witcher 3 are big games!), and in that time I migrated to a new SDD and a new MB+CPU AND did a clean installation of Windows 10. I took care to transfer my Skyrim setup with exactly 365 mods (one for every day of the year, apparently!) - but somewhere along the way, I overwrote my MO profiles with a blank load order. Ugh. When I fired up MO and updated to 1.3.11, I realized that I hadn't actually lost any saves, but I'd nuked my entire load order. Getting the right-hand pane back in working order isn't too much of a problem - LOOT even still has my custom rules. But when MO looked through my mods folder, it simply prioritized the LEFT-hand pane entries in alphabetical order. Tex and mesh mods are a disaster zone! Maybe I'll just have to redo the whole thing by dragging and dropping single files, but I think I see a better way: I have a set of custom categories that roughly follow the load-order in STEP Skyrim - and my categories are still fine, and the mods are still in them. So if I could reset the left-pane priorities numbers so that all the mods in, say, "extenders" are at the top of my priority list, followed by all the mods in "fixes," followed by all the mods in "interface" - etc. - getting everything back in order would be WAAAAAY easier. Any way of doing this?

Two questions: Do you have an alternative version of the STEP patch? What's AIR enb looking like in practice? I don't find the pictures on the nexus page very attractive, but maybe the screenshots were sub-par? (I've been playing around with Vividian's Purity patch, I'm liking it so far.)

I'm kind of getting up my courage to give this thing a whirl. One thing: Can I deactivate all my other LOD mods and replace them with this thing in a running game? Seems like I should be able to, but I was surprsied at how many I have activated: EDT, EDT2, HQLODS - Meshes HiRes, Distant Detail Heathfire Edition, Terrain Bump Landscape Normals - plus the stuff in Skyrim Flora Overhaul.

FYI: Chesko does still ... like ... exist, but he hasn't made up his mind about the future. I was invested in his Hazewalker project a while back. A couple observations from what I saw then + an email: (1) He is a man of honesty and integrity. (2) He has been hoping to make game development his profession for some time - which made his free modding work kind of a time-sink, though he did it anyway because he enjoys it. (3) A successful pro-modding scenario would have been perfect for him. Now that the experiment has imploded, all bets are off. That's my read, anyway. P.S. Isn't there some way to get more than JUST SEVENTY-THREE signatures on the ****-****-**** petition?! That's downright insulting.

The records in the weather settings show A LOT of changes, compared to PW. I don't know enough about weather modding to offer any kind of intelligent opinion - but my hypothesis: Since Purity was originally designed to work without ENBs (it was questionable whether it would get support as a paid mod), he may have dialed in a lot of color stuff quite differently than with PW.

Sweet! Finally a petition *I* can sign!

Tannin - Personally, I'm sad about the way the modding fiasco played out. I can't see the current outcome as a victory for modding when some of the best mod authors in the "business" have ended up getting shafted from every imaginable direction. Really not cool. That said: Any chance you could keep this new functionality? Even before the paid mod thing there were a few mods on Steam that weren't available on Nexus, and it would be cool if MO could pick them up. And: At some point (release fo4?), Valve & Bethesda may take another shot at a mod store - at which point MO would up and ready to go.

Say, Kryptopyr - I read you, and I agree. For my part, the post I made a couple pages back was NOT intended to imply that paid modders are morally obliged to provide supererogatory patching services. What I AM seeing, though, is that paid mods on Steam are likely to be more severely hampered by compatibility problems than free mods on Nexus - and that isn't good for those mods. These days, I think compatibility is possibly THE most crucial thing in Skyrim modding. We've got a bazillion cool mods out there already. But to end up with a good gaming experience you need your mods to harmonize on so many different levels: Do the meshes and textures and animations for everything from distant waterfalls to hanging ivy to jiggling bosoms fit together? Do the weapons, armors and spells have reasonable stats? Does the ENB suit the lighting and weather system? And do all these mods place reasonable demands on resources - and if not, which ones are being greedy? However terrific any single mod may be, if it doesn't fit into a larger system, you can't use it. If you know you can't use it, you probably won't want to buy it - and if you buy it without realizing you won't be able to use it, you probably won't be a happy customer. Of course, one way to deal with this situation would be for someone to start selling really good patches - and I for one would be customer!

Edit: I see that I've said pretty much the same thing as keithnhanoi, only from a user POV. I left the edit window open pretty long to tend to some other stuff! * * * * * After buying a couple of the new Steam mods, I wrote down a few observations yesterday (as opposed, you know, pirating them and trashing them!) - the gist being that using Steam Workshop is (currently) right up there with modelling sting-nettle underwear. In the meantime I've become considerably more aware of another issue that may be a death-blow for the new for-pay mods, unless the situation REALLY improves. One fatal word: Compatibility The most obvious example is Purity. I REALLY like what I see there. It wants to be a one-stop solution for all my water and weather needs. It builds on AND considerably advances three recognized, high quality mods (Pure Weather, Pure Waters, Pure Waters - Waterfalls). What's not to like?? Well, soon as I had the thing up and going, I trotted over to the Vividian page to ask whether new versions of Vividian will work with Purity. (Note: Vividian is designed to work with Pure Weather.) No dice - and I completely understand Mangaclub's standpoint here. (I mean, geeze: why should you pay Modder X so X can sell more mods? And depending on how you make a patch, you could even end up getting arrested for grand theft moddery.) In the meantime, I also noticed that, while Purity has some SWEET waterfall stuff, it doesn't replicate all of Skyfall's functionality. So ... I trot over to Sykfall world, and, well, yeah. Sjoert has taken a stance on the paid mod issue - again, a stance I respect - and has actually stopped work on a patch for Pure Waters. So ... were actually makign backwards progress here. Then I asked Laast - the Purity dev - about stuff, and didn't get very far either. Which I ALSO understand. He's billing Purity as "better than ENB" - which is sort of BS but also sort of your only strategy unless you're going to make your own ENB or know that someone will make one for your (paid) mod. In passing, he also said no to a modular version of his mod, which would let the user mix and match. At first I was irritated by this - but then I realized that modularity probably isn't even possible at the Workshop now stands. So what's he supposed to do - try to sell TWO or even THREE mods? Now, I see some potential fixes for the specific Purity situation. For starters, since the weather sections of Purity are basically Pure Weather with a lot of settings changes, I can probably just keep PW in the load order and let it overwrite Purity. Pity to lose the new developments in weather, but that maintains the status quo and lets me play with his new water stuff. If I'm feeling ambitious, I could even use tes5edit to make a homebrew, single .esp hybrid of Purity and PW. Also: Since DynDOLOD replicates most of what Skyfalls does, this might be a good opportunity to sacrifice another child to Lord Sheeson and get my pretty waterfalls that way. However, this kind of situation puts the paid mods in a very bad place - and I think it's a situation A LOT of the new Steam mods are going to be stuck in. I think, also: People who are going to have long term success selling mods are going to have to be VERY proactive about getting other modders to support their ventures. (Something the initial Valve rollout made completely impossible!)