n0mad23

I haven't seen any performance hits with this in my latest LO. I've not running an ENB but am using SweetFX for post-processing and am most impressed with what Vivid Clouds and Fogs does visually to my environment. Granted, my gaming laptop (MSI) doesn't fit the "nogo for low end computers" clause of the description - however, I really would expect to see a bigger performance hit with this than I've experienced.

@EssArrBee - I am aware of the ruling. Because I live on the Left Coast, I'm also aware of the background blow-back resulting from the Left Coast states rejecting federal law with regards to recreational marijuana use has also had. The same "state's rights" arguments are being kicked around as a way to also reject the Supreme Court's ruling on same sex marriage, Roe v. Wade, and anti-segregation laws. I think the only reason that they're all still in the background is they don't have the same level of popular support that ending marijuana prohibition has. Strange times we live in. One progressive step forward and then two repressive ones back. I'd like to think (but am far too cynical) that progressive laws tend to be more popular than repressive ones. One must never underestimate the motivating power of fear.

Actually, here in the US there are several state with "anti-sodomy" laws still in place. They're almost never actually enforced, but they are law. This indicates that at least in some US states, what you do in the bedroom is subject to the local law. Know your rights! I do feel it's important to point out how often popular laws are neither just, nor are they "legal" outside of the arbitrary passing of laws to make them so.

How well Academia is appreciated in the US currently - fully 80% +/- are adjuncts making between .40 and .60 of a dollar that a tenured professor makes. Calling us "adjuncts" instead of "part-time hourly employees" is a disservice that helps veil this, too. One year, I (illegally according to my contracts) taught 10 credit hours more per quarter than I was allowed, teaching at 4 simultaneous community colleges and a university, and in 4 quarters I grossed $18k. My students working as baristas made more than I did. There's a reason fundamentalists (and here I'm using the term outside of its normalized religious usage) go after intellectuals early in the culling campaigns. Critical inquiry and thinking are dangerous to the status quo.

If we had to choose, I'd still take state sponsored "in-your-face propaganda of 'alternative lifestyles'" over state sponsored Abstinence Only education. The latter potentially far more dangerous to my daughters' lives than the former.

I have no tolerance for intolerance. I have no tolerance of people who think their beliefs trump empirical evidence. I have been working on my own diplomacy instead of whacking people alongside their heads which is my impulse. @Spock - you're right, and there's tons of evidence to support it. @elenhil - agreed, which is what God and Devil terms are about. In other discursive circles the same thing is called Discursive Formations (nothing outside the dominant paradigm exists and can't be talked about) or The Ideological State Apparatus. All basically the same things, with different lenses of interpretation. The dominant paradigm does indeed become "fact," when it isn't. It's an opinion or belief. The language of "War" is a good example of this - it has to be in binary terms and refuses to see nuance or multiple choice outcomes. Remember friends - ignorance is curable but stupidity is a terminal condition.

It's unfortunate the West "discovered" the Common Chimp before the Bonobo. I think looking at the latter biologically would help. Sex, for humans, is as much about the biology of our inherent social natures as it is hard-wired urges for procreation. Perhaps even more so socially. We're hard wired to be language users now. I personally suspect we're hard wired for sex for fun specifically because of our social natures. What other species has children so dependent for so long? Bonobos seem to be hard-wired bisexuals. We've got to try to keep those kids from having sex too early, and we've got to train really, really hard to be able to kill. Which is the natural and which is artificial? In my English 101 classes, very early into the sessions I do a class on "taboos." Partially this is just to get everyone engaged and compelled with what's before them - who doesn't want to talk about the things you can't talk about? I generally break the class into multiple small discussion groups and have them take notes, then bring the class together to consolidate all the ideas they came up with. One session in particular really stood out to me, as it was the only time I had to intervene in one of the small groups as they got to arguing at levels that were disruptive. The source of conflict? One woman refused to accept her group's wanting to put incest on their list of Western taboos. Why? Because it was "a biological mandate," that supersedes any kind of arbitrary cultural taboo, she argued. (Incest has always been the prerogative of gods and royalty but let's not go there.) It's "God terms" and "Devil terms" that really get in the way. If it's outside the ready-made terms (largely unexamined) within our culture, they're Devil terms and we can't talk about those. Same with God terms - gods help you if you try to point out logical problems with the position, as you don't criticize God. We impose meaning to justify our cultural norms. I've yet to meet a racist or homophobe who was born that way. I suspect there are a few out there, but aberrations do happen. My take, anyway. Edited for clarity.

I apologize if I inadvertently stirred the wasps' nest here. It wasn't my intent, but rather attempting to understand what the issue is behind these mods not cooperating (yet). Mostly I'm still kicking myself for getting so involved in a play-through when there was a ETaC patch waiting for me to test drive! When I work, I'm a college English professor so I'll officially volunteer here and now to make myself available for any assistance Mod authors posting here with technical writing, specifically if it involves language barrier/translation issues. I'm still fairly good at reading and writing in French (though it's fossilized enough I struggle to speak it) and a smattering of intact Bahasa Indonesian (which means Malay, too). I'd sure like to help in anyway I can. Cheers.

Lol - It's all pretty subjective, isn't it? My first reaction to the shiny cubemaps was feeling that they are ridiculous, too. But after playing this this installed for a bit I found I actually rather like them. It's like the women take better care of their armor than the male adventurers do. The shiny cubemap armors from Inconsequential NPCs are worse imo, and the Realistic Female Armors are about 1/2 as shiny as the former. You might appreciate the irony, spaceoden - I'm a big fan of HDT, but only in conjunction with Gamwich's Rustic Clothing and with those hunter gals soaking in the hot-springs. Yet I'm the guy who posted the link to "de-genderized" female armor. I personally really like hearing what other people think, so thanks for your view here! Cheers.

I must admit I haven't gotten much further with CK than my "wtf is this?" moments. I'm too olde skool to interface with youtube tutorials and prefer my technical documents to be actual print. The CK written documentation leaves much to be desired, at least that which I've assembled over the last couple months. I actually attempted CK learning initially as I hoped I could "fix" a couple of the Solitude expansion mods that are too problem filled for me to use. Came to my senses pretty quickly and decided it'd probably be easier and more productive to design a Soltidude expansion of my own. Maybe one of these days.... Am I understanding that the fixes to ETaC then requires that mod to be loaded in conjunction with Immersive Citizens in Creation Kit and then closely examine each nav mesh area where the two mods intersect? Sounds rough. I'm going to remain optimistic that MJB has success as I find I'm going through serious ETaC withdraws here.

I've been attempting to follow the dialog between the two mods as well, but not as regularly as I feel now I should have been. Most reports from ETaC indicates that things are working fairly well together now, but I haven't gotten the same impression from info on the Immersive Citizens end. A seamless cooperation between the two would/will be a dream come true for me. Immersive Citizens Incompatibility page states this: Will you do a compatibility patch for ETaC? I'll try, but there is no guarantee of success. For now, I didn't find any viable solution. What's going to happen if I use your mod along with ETaC or something similar? Most of the time, the AI used by the NPCs living in Riverwood will be disabled, as a result, the NPCs won't move for severals hours. When the AI is not disabled, the NPCs will often perform irrational moves. If you use the Inn version, NPCs won't be able to enter or to leave some Inns.

I just learned that there is recent patch to get Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul to work with ETaC. Has anyone here given the patch a try yet? I'm now up to Level 19 with my latest LO - play through, and find I'm missing the extra merchants and added habitation ambiance enough to be contemplating pulling the plug and reinstalling ETaC now that there's a patch up. But I'm nervous, too. Any thoughts and/or advice will be greatly appreciated.

@Kesta - lol. I forgot, but yes, in my attempt to further the population of Skyrim I do indeed have Prostitutes of Skyrim in my LO. Though he never has taken advantage of this, to the best of my knowledge, I suspect Gor from Interesting NPCs is very appreciative of this. Prostitutes of Skyrim is really unobtrusive, and if your imaginings of Skyrim allows Tamriel's Oldest Profession its a mod to use. Where they inhabit Inns, they wear the garb of Tavern Wenches which works for me in creating a populated ambiance that remains lore friendly. I'd recommend mannyGT's mod without hesitation to the appropriate audience. BTW - to those who haven't tested Lively Inns and Taverns, I suggest trying it at some point just to see animations that Betheseda incorporated but never implemented. The heavily intoxicated are certainly worth the price of admission, and the coughing/hacking sequences really emphasize the Nordic medieval smoke ventilation problem. I have to post a caveat though - be sure to use KnightRangersGuild's "Drunk Sinking Head Idles Fix" as it's beyond unsettling to see the glitch. My first test of LIAT ended with me removing the mod specifically because of this bug (I mistakenly though at the time it was LIAT's fault), but after KnightRangersGuild posted the fix, I had to give it another try. No regrets.

The only conflict I've had with Skooma Dealers of Skyrim is with Radiant and Unique Potions Poisons and Booze, but letting Skooma Dealers load was all that was required. RUPPB conflicts with the alcohol and skooma prices and effects. The alcohol effect is my only complaint re: Skooma Dealers as a single ale or mead leads to double vision. However, this is fixed with a provided patch if you're using Realistic Needs (I believe). When I first tried Skooma Dealers I was using ETaC modular (pretty much everything installed) plus Solitude Reborn along with Better Docks and didn't see any problem with the single dealer the mod brings to Solitude. There's one in Windhelm, one in Markarth, and the last in Riften - all wander between 2 spots just outside the city and in. Only 4 skooma merchants added, plus the rare finds of little stashes (2 or 3 bottles usually) at bandit camps, and other places that "make sense." For example, there are 2 bottles of felldew and 1 greenmote (the most powerful visual effects) in the dormitory of the Greybeards. I can see it. Inconsequential NPCs adds a skooma dealer in Riften as well (and two "flower girls" and two male skooma addicts) and this dealers prices adjust to Skooma Dealers if the latter has priority in LO. I am using Immersive Citizens overhaul this time around, and am now kicking myself as I've just learned there's a tentative patch made for use with ETaC. I'd given up ETaC this time around specifically to give IC Overhaul a try. Unfortunately I've been so into this play through (my first experience with Dawnstar DLC) that I'm all ready at Level 19 and feel pretty invested. I'm really missing the additions ETaC brings, and my villages really seem "too" small after having grown used to ETaC. Immersive Citizens seems to be working well with all my population additions. I'm really glad I went with the Less Lively version of LIAT as you are correct about more named citizens appearing in the pubs at night! I'm also using Become a Bard this time around (again) and I'm really digging turning the "allow npcs to dance" option in its MCM menu, and watching spontaneous awkward attempts at Nordic dancing in those densely packed pubs now. I've yet to see any "idiot npc" behavior even in these uber-dense scenes so I'm guessing Immersive Citizens is hugely responsible.

I had to populate the land with people (note - I think in Tamriel this isn't limited to humans). To this end I'm using - Inconsequential NPCs Interesting NPCs (Less) Lively Inns and Taverns and pretty much the entire Erkeil Team Populated series: -Populated Lands Roads Paths -Populated Prison Cells -Populated Forts Towers Places -Populated Cities Towns Villages -Populated Civil War (with only the patrols turned on) With these I've opted out of the option to use scripts to hire the mercenaries and guards. Pretty much the entire Erkeil Team series is script free. The Prince and the Pauper with Gamwich's Rustic Textures patch - makes socio-economic lines visible with those kids running around everywhere. Skooma Dealers of Skyrim - which I personally have recommended calling "Immersive Skooma Overhaul and other Lore Friendly Entheogens," as there really aren't too many dealers added (3 or 4). Prices are jacked way, way up which helps explain vanilla dialog about skooma murders and other crimes. I really dig the visual effects some of these drugs offer, and a ride through the falling leaves outside of Riften while tripping on felldew has to be seen to be appreciated. Skooma, in particular, is very well done - when ingested there's a horrendous visual "rush" with total disorientation that fades really quickly. Stamina regeneration is just slightly below an ultimate stamina regeneration potion for the duration of the skooma intoxication. Lights get bright, and if there's a bit of sunlight showing, the roads of Skyrim can look like the Yellow Brick Road for a while. As a visual metaphor, it really works for me - really ampy with some happy golden glow replicating the narcotic descriptions and the addition might be so attractive, though the mod itself doesn't add addiction.