OCDCoder

I ended up not using any of them. I didn't want all the people to look like teenage girls, or install mods for just a few people. I HAD installed WICO (carefully following the instructions), but I'd decided to try the vanilla opening since I'd had a CTD there and Ralof looked like someone had smeared mud down his face. (Everyone else looked fine.) Then I opened in the Bannered Mare, went outside, and Nazeem's face was black. I don't mean anything ethnic, I mean BLACK, just eyes and teeth, he was terrifying. And he had a Caucasian body... Now that I have Vitruvia and Pride of Valhalla installed, everyone looks pretty good anyway. (Although I tried multiple times and couldn't get that Version of Vitruvia to install, MO2 wouldn't recognize it, so I had to use... the other one... LOL) I did add Consistent Older People, though. I've always liked that one. Is there a reason we're not using XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended v4.31? Or Campfire and Frostfall? I was looking at the page last night and they seem SSE-ready.

Spent around 3h troubleshooting a CTD in mods that had previously been tested. Suddenly thought to hard boot my computer. Problem solved. https://www.ocdcoder.org/headdesk.gif (Anyone is welcome to use/steal/whatever that at any time. I find myself using it far too often.)

But I only need to create those if I have conflicts, right? I found the problem. It was Enhanced Lighting for ENB (ELE). I disabled that, no more ORANGE downstairs at the inn, no more CTDs. I even enabled DynDOLOD Resources and HD LODs Textures, did a lot of testing, and those are still fine. Well, a couple of the walls in Whiterun have a kind of pink hue and the ground at Helgen (vanilla quest chosen from LAL) looks really wet, but unless you know that's being caused by a specific setting, I'll worry about that when I get farther down the list, these might be fixed. By the way, so I set EnableDepthOfField=true again in enbseries.ini, but the closest setting I found in the ini files was in skyrimprefs.ini, where I reset bDoDepthOfField=1. But I see SO many DOF settings. What can I change to set the distance? I don't mind it overall, it looks great if I'm looking off into the distance, but I'd like to change whatever the setting(s) is/are so that if I'm standing on the steps of the Bannered Mare, it maybe starts getting blurry past the market square. One more question, I see some settings in these files about sparkle. What does that control? Some of the images on the load screen sparkle. It's most noticeable on the dragon, where it does it on all of the tips of scales and such. I remember having that problem in SkyrimLE when I was modding and I had to turn one of the settings to lower quality, but I'm wondering if the real problem is something else. Thank you for the help with all of these questions. You have the patience of a saint! EDIT: Don't feel a need to answer this immediately, you have enough to do! These are minor things, so far, I don't have any more major things to troubleshoot. (Yea!!!)

Is there somewhere I can get the patches individually, or do I not need them? I'm having a few more problems. The first, I'm using LAL and starting at the Bannered Mare in Whiterun. First, downstairs is orange. I mean really REALLY orange. I'm assuming that's the EMB? If so, which files can I disable? The bigger problem is that when I test (a new game each time), I leave the room, go downstairs, exit, talk to a few people on the street, then go into Belethor's shop. I'd get a CTD right after the load screen. So I disabled DynDOLOD since it said it wasn't set up until the end and HD LODs below that because it seemed to be related. I thought that was a DUH moment, because trying it after that, I can go into Belethor's shop, but then I try going into Arcadia's Cauldron and get a CTD there. So I went back to the vanilla profile, added LAL, and everything worked fine. I ran into every shop in Whiterun, outside, back in, it ran great. Any idea what mod could be causing this? I disabled every mod from the "Trees, Flora, and Grass" section all the way down and it's still happening. I had been testing after every section, making sure to run LOOT and disabling any esps with missing masters. But apparently I was neglecting to go into shops, I was just running out and skipping around the fields for a while. Modding this has been seriously exhausting (nothing personal, I'm sick, everything is exhausting). I just wanted to ask if anyone has any idea what it could be before I disable everything and start over with testing. Finally, even when I ran the non-cleaned vanilla version, there's still one problem. Everything and everyone is blurry until I get really close. Like, I'd say five feet away? I'm pretty sure my default Nord doesn't need glasses, I'm sure that's a setting somewhere. Any idea which one? This is all because one of the people I'm talking to during testing is Nazeem, isn't it?

Sorry, I hate to make a second post, but it won't let me edit that one. So that Retexture Merge patch only contains one esp, so it doesn't seem like it would work unless we installed all of the optional overhauls. But I couldn't find one for just the WICO one. Or do we only need that merged patch if we do install all of them? The esp files are said to be included in the pack, but the installation instructions for WICO said to delete all of the esp files. So if we're not using that patch, do we need them?

Since we're using the UNP Blessed Body SE (well, I'm not using the Blessed version), for WICO - Windsong Immersive Character Overhaul, should we download the UNP version? Also, any advice on any other NPC retextures? It looks like the spreadsheet is out of date. I don't see Inhabitants of Skyrim listed on here. I want the NPCs to look like themselves, just nicer. NOT nicer in that way that everyone in the game looks like an 18-year-old model. Just graphically nicer. I assume that for the Retexture Merge, we just download it and delete all the ones we aren't using? (Wow, there are A LOT of patches on that page!)

I just ran Prometheus_No_snow_Under_the_roof.esp through SSEEdit. The guide says that it has five UDRs and only mentions cleaning those, but out of habit, I also ran Remove Identical to Master records and it found 59 of them. I looked on the mod page and didn't see these mentioned. Like MoonAndStar_MAS.esp, I'm just going to leave it cleaned for now, but if someone could clarify whether or not these should be cleaned and how much, I want to be sure I'm not breaking anything.

Oops, no I didn't, I've just been going by the guide. I did just now, though, and didn't see anything. (Admittedly it was a quick glance, but I specifically checked the FAQ during that glance.)

By the way, you can set a -IKnowWhatImDoing argument in MO2 for SSEEdit if you're tired of that warning every time you need to clean a mod. (Great name for an argument. LOL)

I'm getting a message in LOOT that Moon and Star (MoonAndStar_MAS.esp) has 1 ITM record and needs to be cleaned. I assume it's ok to do that?

Yeah, I figured Alternate Start was the way to go. Although right now since I'm following the prereqs, I've only run it with SKSE and so far, that worked. (I wasn't even getting the opening screen before, even with just the vanilla ESMs.) So thank you for that! (And I assume you just disable esps that are patches for things that aren't installed yet?) It might be good to add instructions for testing, if I didn't mention that before. I was thinking on the merges, since as I believe you said earlier, LOOT isn't going to run after a certain point in this guide. I might be mistaken, but I think some of the merges contain files in multiple sections. It would be helpful at the end of each section, if appropriate, you had something like, "You can create the [whatever] merge now." One more tiny thing: In the "Post BethINI Tweaks" section, you have "Right-click Skyrim Script Extender in the Mod Organizer mod list." Previously, you'd said to name the mod "SKSE Scripts." I ended up skimming back over the whole thing to make sure I hadn't missed something, because there's a LOT in this prereq section I don't remember doing. BTW, I'm a programmer (too?) and trying to track bugs and questions in a forum with 290+ pages and growing obscenely fast would drive me insane. Might I suggest a Google doc or similar where people can report bugs, updates, and suggestions in different sections (and make sure they haven't already been reported) and then you could cross them off or comment the famous, "It's not a bug, it's a feature." I feel bad sticking little tiny things in the middle of posts about other subjects, but I also don't want to add an entire post for little things like this. Or other things like all of the different mods in my list that are showing updates just since yesterday. You never know, there could be a reason you don't want us updating a given mod. (And actually my first "real job" was as a tech writer/editor, so even though that was *mumble* years ago, I still look at instructions and my mind goes to ways they could be made clearer.) I hope you don't think I'm wanting to create more work for you, seriously, I can't say enough how amazing this guide is and wonder how you possibly have time to do anything else. It's just things that come to mind that I feel would either help people going through it be less confused or help you in the long run by making things easier (which goes along with helping people be less confused, really) and having a to-list of things you may miss in the forum.

Thanks. Also, I also see that it's recommending putting the MO2 program in the common directory. Is that an absolute requirement? I had put the folder on another drive where I've been putting all of my modding tools. I'd also put Wrye Bash there before. (I never got to a point of using it, so I'm not sure if that would be a problem. It wasn't when I was modding SLE.) Although having MO2 on my C: drive probably will give me a huge advantage as that's an M.2 drive and WOW is it fast! Never mind, got enough info on that from the video which I skipped the first time since I thought I knew enough from having used MO1 so much. *smacks self* As far as testing and why I'm going through the prereqs again, when you have time, could you write something on when and how to test? (Or point me to it if I missed it.) Somewhere in here I think I read to test after every section, but that involves disabling a ton of patches for things that are installed later. Which is fine, but somewhere in there is when Skyrim quit loading, so I know I did something wrong. Again, I'm really sorry for so many questions and requests. I know it makes me seem like a liar when I claim I'm a very experienced modder. I've just never done anything the scope of THIS guide before. I said it before, but I am SO impressed with this, the thoroughness of the instructions (except where I had questions) and the MASSIVE number of mods included. Just... wow.

Small thing. On the Prereq page, it says to download "Mod Organizer 2 (Standalone Version)." On the mod page, it's called "Mod Organizer 2 (Archive)." (It does have the right name when you download it.) There is one with that name, but it's down in the old files. I'm wondering if this is why I was having problems with MO2 and had to use the installer before. Which... yuck, I need to uninstall now. It doesn't show up in Revo uninstaller, so I actually have to install it, trace it, then uninstall it. (I'm doing all the prereqs over again. And yes, I'm backing up the appropriate directories because I'm NOT doing all of the mod installs again.) And a humble request. When mods are added or deleted, can you list which section they go in? It's not a huge deal, I know I can search, but especially right now as I'm installing them (I was SO happy when the scrollbar showed I'd made it half down the page yesterday) it's much easier to find them at a glance. Oh, sorry, ONE more question. When installing Wrye Bash to the SSE directory, can I change the directory name to that or do I need to leave it as Mopy? Sorry for all of the questions. Hopefully I'm at least helping with "Idiot Proofing" the guide. LOL

LOL Yes, they would. Well YESTERDAY I had an AMD card. TODAY I have a shiny new 6GB NVIDIA card!!! So maybe I can get some of this working now! (Adding instructions for AMD users would be helpful, though.) I need to start back at the prereqs anyway. I tried running what I had so far (making sure to disable any patches for anything I didn't have installed yet) and the game crashed immediately. (Yes, I ran loot.) So then I went back to the vanilla profile and the game wouldn't even load that. This isn't my first experience with S.T.E.P. Unfortunately it's not my first experience with screwing up something stupid either. On that subject, I've seen advice to stop and test periodically. Any advice on at what points and how? The way I did? Just uncheck all of the patches and run LOOT? With that said: It's time to get into the wonderful world of Skyrim Modding. We hope you'll find it pleasant. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahem, sorry. Nothing personal with the guide, I swear, it's the easiest to follow, most thorough one I've ever tried. PLAYING the game is going to be AMAZING. The actual modding process, well... (You guys are really so awesome for doing this, PLEASE don't take it as an insult.)

Hey, slowly working through this. A couple of things from the ENB section. First, the SkyrimSE Re-Engaged ENB is now at version 6.1a. Second, I'd already mentioned that the NVIDIA Profile Inspector won't run on my system. I do have an AMD Catalyst Control Center where I can change most of the settings (although not the max framerate but I seem to remember there's a mod that does that). So for now, does the "If running Vysnc through Graphic Driver..." only apply to people who've used the NVIDIA program? Although obviously I have to set those settings somewhere... Happily, I have a shiny new video card that's supposed to be here TODAY so maybe the profile inspector will work then. But just in case, I can set most of the settings in the Catalyst Control Center (or hopefully whatever the new one uses) and I can create profiles for specific games. It tells me to pick the executable to set it up. Do I pick SkyrimSE.exe or the skse64_loader.exe if the Profile Inspector won't run on my new card either?

Fair enough. And, well, my Bruma download just froze in MO and my manual browser download of the Dragonborn Gallery, I think that's a sign I should stop for the night. By the way, if someone could confirm, I did just finish those instructions for cleaning the Undeath files, but while the guide says that the "Undeath Immersive Lichdom SSE" also needs to be cleaned, the instructions on the website say to skip steps 3 and 4 if on SSE. Should we do it anyway, or should that note for the Immersive file be removed? And why do my SSEEdit Backups keep ending up in my overwrite directory? Sigh.

I've actually been playing Skyrim LE on my PS3 recently, all the bugs, none of the mods. It's been an interesting experience because I'd played it so much years back on PC (after playing it obsessively for ages on the PS3) and had it so heavily modded with other things to do that it's been ages since I've done any of the standard quests. That got me to thinking about what mods I'd most want to have on the PS3 if I had a choice. It's still fun without the graphics mods, I can eat, sleep, and dress as warmly as possible (without the cloaks), the lack of the museum just means I don't obsessively collect everything. As much as I love a heavily-modded game, better dialogue, all of that, I realized that while I love all of those mods, I don't NEED them to enjoy the game. When I really really thought about it, the real game-changers for me besides the bug-patch are two really simple ones: Jaxonz Positioner because OMG I give up on decorating, and Take Notes, because that one allowed me to get really deep into role-playing my last character. I still try to do it in my head, but without an in-game way to write down her thoughts, I often realize I'm just mindlessly doing stuff to mark quests off the list or raise her level. Any chance those could be added to this guide? (And just for a bit more completion, Jaxonz Renamer and Jaxonz Map Markers?) I know I can add them anyway, but with all of the extra content this guide adds, I really think those add a LOT to the game.

Ok, so we do turn that option on for those files, but we don't have to manually delete the BSAs, they are deleted automatically? Maybe it would have been clearer to me if in "A Note On Extracting BSA's" it said something like, "Whenever you see this tag..." (Apparently I needed a bit more idiot proofing in that part.) I decided to just keep going while these big files download and stick them where they go when they're done. Just got to cleaning the Undeath files. I'm going to need a lot more caffeine... I don't suppose anyone has done this already and uploaded them somewhere?

It was actually the legend that confused me. I wasn't sure if there was an implied "you have to" in there since it gives instructions a bit later on how to do it. I did just realize that I need to go back and run the mods I converted using the CK through SSEEdit. Oops.

[insert string of curse words here] I just did a huge hardware upgrade (which is why I'm so excited about playing SE!), which required me to upgrade to Win10 (meh). I just went away for about an hour and a half to let some of this stuff download and came back to find I'd forgotten to change the power settings and the machine had gone to sleep 30m in. And the downloads seemed to have hung, so I paused them, and now MO2 is crashing when I try to resume them. So I'm having to delete them and start over. Seriously, this really is going to take a month... Ok, so Sennah, first, thanks for the answers! 2. Just to make sure I have this perfectly clear (still under-caffeinated BUT I just now made more tea), I do NOT have extract BSAs turned on in MO, but for any that are marked "BSA Extracted," I still just install as normal and don't have to do anything else? For the rest of it, troubleshooting I can handle. I did enough of that on my S.T.E.P. + a million other mods on my old install. (What is the proper term for the original Skyrim? I keep hearing "Oldrim," but I'm not really fond of that one.) As for the way you do categories, I did that on my old install, then ended up changing the categories back because it was confusing when I threw in a ton of other mods and started wanting more specific categories. Oh, one more question I forgot to ask: 5. I can't get the Nvidia Profile Inspector to work. I had to use the links at the bottom of the linked page to even get the Profile Inspector on my computer, the links marked "Download Nvidia Profile Inspector" only gave me the Nvidia Inspector. I can run the Nvidia Inspector, but clicking the Start Profile Inspector button just gives me the spinning "wait" cursor for a few seconds. Same thing if I try to run it directly. (I also tried setting both to run as administrator.) Am I missing something? Could it just not be compatible with my video card? The guide does say "install," but there's no installation file, just zip files I unzipped into a directory. (Also, it says to "unpack" the .nip file, but I'm not sure what to do with that. It's just an XML file.) Remind me, this is going to be fun when I'm finally done, right?

First, I want to say that I'm REALLY impressed with the thoroughness of this guide! With the exception of some very specific things like house mods, it has pretty much every mod I've ever used or wanted to use! (Well, it will when Chesko updates. It's just not Skyrim to me without Frostfall.) I also very much appreciate how thorough the instructions are! I do have some questions: I was originally following another guide and installed MO2 using the installer. I uninstalled that (even using Revo Uninstaller to make sure there was nothing left over), then installed it manually, by just extracting it to a directory. When I did that, it suddenly wouldn't handle mods packed as 7z files. I finally gave up trying to fix that and reinstalled again using the installer. BUT (the real issue) neither time upon running it did I get an option for Portable Mode. Is there a way to change that somewhere, or is it ok to leave it as-is when making the merges? When something is labeled "BSA Extracted," is that just informational (as in, something that happens during the mod install) or does that mean we have to extract the BSA ourselves using MO2 and then delete the files after the mod is installed? "This tag represents mods whose BSA(s) is/are extracted into the mod's folder after mod installation, and then deleted after extraction" isn't parsing correctly in my brain. (And I feel like this may be a really stupid question, so if it is, I'm going to blame my needing more caffeine...) If a mod is listed as "Core" but we really don't want it, is it ok to leave it out, even if it's part of a merge, and just make sure that there are no compatibility patches for it? For some reason, I've just really never liked "Improved closefaced helmets." (That one doesn't seem to be part of a merge, I'm just asking in case I run into any others.) Once we have it all installed, when the guide is updated and mods or other instructions are updated or removed, are those always going to be safe to update or remove or should we assume that keeping our install up-to-date with the guide is going to trash our saves?That's it, at least for now. I think it's going to take the rest of the day for Bruma, Legacy of the Dragonborn, High Resolution Textures, and High Quality Voices to download. (I skipped ahead to a few of the bigger ones so I could get them started.) Oh, in case this helps anyone, one thing that was recommended in another SE S.T.E.P. guide that I was reading is to create an empty directory in the Overwrite section of MO2, then make a mod out of it named after whatever guide section you're in, for example, "Essential SKSE Plugins," "Bug Fixes," etc. and move it to the appropriate place in the left pane, repeating for every section. Them being unchecked, in grey italics, and having a big red X next to them is really helping me a lot with keeping track of what section I'm in. Thanks again for such an incredible guide! (Even if I feel like it's going to take a month to finish installing it. LOL)