cstarkey42

I think ENS provides the best stars, I prefer the lower stars package the best, and have found the rest twinkle and sparkle a bit too much. If you're looking for a new galaxy you might want to check out EWI's. He has a few which are just a deep blue and look really good if you're like me and the others are just way too colorful for you, especially with the auroras glowing. There's also one packaged with Pure Weathers that is just a spiral galaxy. It's small, quiet, and looks great in the night sky.

I tried merging them and it was strange. They merge and don't show any errors but in game the textures were messed up, in Winterhold at least. It was like it was a combination between vanilla and BTT's. Also, the game would eventually crash so beats the hell out of me. The more I ran around trying to figure out what the problem was, however, the more things I noticed that were out of place and it really started to bug me. I'm dropping BTT from my game, unfortunately, because the awnings and other little additions that JK adds don't change to BTT's new textures and, while you won't really notice them at first, they eventually become an eyesore. Inside the buildings other things stuck out too, such as walls still being wooden when the rest of the building is stone. In T5E I see there are minor changes JK makes to the data and rotation. It's only a few points here and there but I'm guessing he changed them for a reason. I guess they're compatible enough if you really want the new textures, which I did and was willing to overlook things when I'd go through the towns the first time, but once you've passed through a couple times you'll really start to notice more and more incompatibilities and, if you're like me, it will slowly drive you crazy. Hopefully JK will be too invested in his mod to leave it as is and will add a different texture for each town as well...and then he can do interiors for the stores...and then he can do... :) Sorry to get your hopes up. I was really looking forward to using BTT again. Oh well. @Nearox Sorry, didn't realize you guys had considered it already. I was beginning to think I was one of the few people in the world who even knew of it. I mainly like the stone columns he adds, they really give it an ancient, mystical sort of feel. I forgot all about BCE so there's probably a few things there that I'm mistakenly attributing to MREU that are actually from BCE.

I think you got me there, Teabag. I'm trying to remember if I've tried to merge them but I don't think I have. I can't believe I let that one slip past me. I just added BTT again after switching to JK so I guess it never occured to me but I'd be surprised if they didn't merge well. The only problem might be the elfx patch. Sometimes merging elfx patches causes flashing lights but it's worth a try. I'll give it a try later when I have a chance and let you know how it works.

Here's a mod that should get way more love than it does. It makes the surrounding area of Markarth way more chilling and unique: Markarth Reach Environment Upgrade

Footprints seems like it would be such a small addition ( and, by itself, I'm sure it is ) but when you start running a real heavy set up every little bit adds up. Other recommend dropping Wet and Cold or enhanced blood textures but, personally, I think those add a lot more throughout all of skyrim than footprints does. Also, I disable some of the additions of WC in the mcm and set it to update at 12 seconds ( which seemed to make an immediately noticable impact ) and I turn off the scripts of EBT via the mcm. Footprints adds both decals and a small script to each npc so it adds enough to slow you down, especially in high traffic areas/events. Plus, I found I barely even notice the footprints once I get used to them being there so I really don't miss it that much ( though I'd much rather have it than not but I had to cut back somewhere ). I could be way off but it seems to me that JK only adds things and doesn't remove anything or move anything, unlike ETAC, which is why lots of mods are compatible with it out of the box. BTT works great with it since it just uses an esp to change the textures used for certain buildings and doesn't conflict with JK since JK doesn't move those buildings. What's really cool about BTT is that it also works great with RRR, changing the interiors of the inns while RRR changes the decor. Like I said, new buildings that JK adds won't have the new textures since they're not a part of the BTT esp but I think it still works really well, adding a bit of variety in the buildings, especially since it's only like 1 or 2 new buildings anyway. It's just too bad that the BTT author is done with the project. I know he was working on something for the smaller towns but I think he's given up on modding. Also be sure to check out his Better Mills Textures, which is also great and makes each mill match the surrounding town's textures ( Markarth's is particularly well done ). If you use both BTT and BMT then he has special patches for NSUR and ELFX which combines the two so you only need 2 patches instead of 4.

A couple things in regards to yesterday's discussion: 1. I stopped in the inn in Dragonbridge, which I never do, and found that there was a good deal of clipping inside the inn. I assume this is from Realistic Room Rental and JK but I didn't investigate it further, I just noticed it when I walked in. I went to Morthal and didn't see any in the inn. I realized, however, that I'm using Better Town Textures ( another benefit of switching to JK from ETAC ) and that BTT has a patch for NSUR, so most of the buildings looked like they should. A few had the Vivid farmhouse style of roof though, which I'm assuming are new buildings that JK added. It works well though, as there are only a couple it does break the monotony of the town. I really like JK's Morthal, with BTT, compared to ETAC's, with Jenna's textures, as now it looks and feels like a creepy, run down town in the middle of a swamp. It still has a wall but it's just a bunch of sticks tied together and really seems to blend in with the surroundings quite well. 2. I lowered my shadows to 4000 and am experiencing a much smoother game. The pop in is hardly noticable, I think, and I've come to terms with it by telling myself that the near shadows are supposed to have higher detail at lower values so it's a bit of a zero-sum game. I also added vivid's classic grey mountains so they better mesh with SDO's lod, which did help the entire scene run together much more consistently and seemed to help hide the shodow pop-in. After that I tried adjusting my SSAO settings ( thanks, Nearox ). I use the high quality setting from vividian so I just set complex IL and supersampling to false. I also lowered SMAA to high and set all of the AA in the enblocal to false. Boo-Yow ( RIP SS )! The quality loss is there but I feel it's very negligible, especially on a performance/quality basis. Finally I dropped CWO ( I'm still pre-CW ), ran the cleaner, then got cocky and dropped footprints as well. Game runs silky smooth ( well, relatively so. If I want it to be ultra silky smooth I'd have to drop down to vanilla, or close to it ). Hell, I might even bump it back up to 7 on the ugrids. Hope this helps.

I just double checked and not many conflicts, at all. Since it doesn't move any buildings, WC doesn't seem to be an issue ( maybe some clipping when the decorations are out with the new awnings? IDK, it doesn't show up in t5e. ). The only REGS mods with a few are No snow and bobbing boats, both due to Morthal and the new models JK uses for his boats. I think it's just a matter of preference there. BFT has some navmesh conflicts, though they mainly seem due to bft carrying over some of the original nm while JK has new paths. I haven't noticed anything in game but I'm going to place JK Skyrim after bft, leaf rest, Skyrim Bridges, Better Roads, pitfighter and place these after JK: Breezehome upgraded, better town textures, elfx - exteriors, boat bobbing ( I'm happy you got me to do this, I had more navmesh conflicts than I realized due to other mods carrying over the original paths. Of course, people will be tripping over the occasional carriage from bft but we'll see how it works. Hopefully my game doesn't explode ). Now, back to figuring out why the hell sweetfx isn't starting with far cry 3... edit: Load order: https://pastebin.com/7ZSDiHKJ

I was using a merge of all the cities minus Riften, plus Immersive Settlements Orcs and Raven Rock, plus the Real Shelter Patches for JK when it was just Whiterun and Windhelm. The merge was easy and worked great. I've since switched to the full JK Skyrim, JK Falkreath, JK Morthal, merged IS Orc and RR, and the merged patch available from Real Shelter. The only restriction I have I LOOT is that they are after Verdant Grasses. I haven't had any problems or compatability issues that I'm aware of. He doesn't move the buildings around like ETAC does so I don't think patches are as much of a concern for most complimentary mods ( houses and such are different, of course ). I'm not using any etac right now since I knew JK was going to release more cities and it seemed easier to add them to my current game as they come out. Once he gets it finalized I'll pick and choose before my next playthrough. I love what ETAC does for the towns but JK adds a lot more of the smaller details that really give each town a different character and dynamic, which I really like. I'll add some etac towns, I'm sure, but dealing with the patches and extra esp slots for a few extra buildings in the tiny towns may not really be worth it. Do you think you guys could repost the replacement esps for Raven Rock and Thalmor for those of us that aren't using etac anymore? Thanks. @teabag: Glad to hear your keeping busy. I'm starting to see you in all of the mod forums I lurk in. Is JK pretty good about keeping the form ids unique? I was going to merge Skyrim with Falkreath and Morthal but tried to squeeze in the Real Shelter patch again and it kept giving me a strange error ( not the good kind, either. The kind that won't even let t5e proceed loading the esp when I'm trying to load it for an error check. ). I'm guessing it was due to the Real Shelter patch but started playing BF4 instead so I haven't tried it again yet. I'm glad to hear he's doing Dawnstar ( of course! I can't wait for that one! ) and Winterhold and am wondering if I shouldn't just drop Winterhold ruins now or wait to see if it works together ( though I'm guessing it won't ).

Thanks Teabag. Maybe it is 1.8.8 that I'm using, I'll have to check though I'm pretty sure it's only 1.8.

Also, when you check for errors are you going into the mp to see what the problem actually is? The output is a little cryptic but it's not too hard to figure out ( ARMO for Armors, etc.. ). Just look the the section indicator and the Form ID listed in the line. Track it down and you can see what the problem is. Sometimes it's a simple matter of loading the patches into t5e, the mp at the end of it all, checking for errors and then going into the mp where that error points to. Since you loaded the original patches they will show up as well and you can see what, exactly, is failing to load correctly. You can then either drag the original edit from the original mod, not from the patch but from the original mod, save it and that works more often than you would think ( scripts are often fixed this way. I have no idea why they don't just copy over the first time ( though it's often from the problem I was describing in the previous post ) ). If that doesn't work then you at least know the guilty patch and you can just leave it out of the merge and decide if you even need it at all or if it's worth losing the extra esp slot for. I hope this helps.

Are all of the Masters really listed as masters? I have had a problem with merging some patches when the patch changes something but doesn't have the mod as a master. When you load the patches into t5e it doesn't load the original mod and you'll get errors ( WAF and CCOR patches have caused this problem, such as when merging Immersive Sounds - Aural ). You just have to be sure to load the main mod into t5e as well. I don't remember this being the case with the etac patches but it has been a while since I made the patch. She's updated since then as well so that might be why it worked before. I was holding off until a new major update came out, as opposed to just the houses being closed, so I haven't dled the newest one or tried merging it at all ( 13.3.1 was the last I did and it worked great for me ).

Yes, it is beta. I just switched to it though and was using 1.75, at most, when I last did the etac merge.

No. I always rerun tes5edit and check for errors after a merge. I'm using JK's overhauls now instead of ETAC so I don't know if it will work with the newest version of the merge script ( I'm using 1.8 ) but I don't see why it would be a problem. If I remember right Jenna said not to renumber form IDs with the patches ( but do renumber them with the Immersive Settlements Whiterun, Orc Settlements and Raven Rock ) but I might be wrong, it was a while ago that Craig asked in the forum.

RRR_Moonpath-Patch.esp RRR_NSUtR-Patch.esp ETaC - Better Dynamic Snow Patch.esp ETaC - Complete BFT Patch.esp ETaC - Complete CRF Patch.esp ETaC - Complete EWDR Patch.esp ETaC - Better Winterhold.esp ETaC - Complete NoSnow Patch.esp ETaC - Complete WC Holidays Patch.esp ETaC - Whiterun Ext CRF Patch.esp ETaC - Complete RS Patch.esp HearthfireChimneys - ETaC.esp YouHungerHardcore-ETAC-Patch.esp YouHungerHardcore-INPC-Patch.esp Patch - Inconsequential NPCs - RS kids.esp Patch - Interesting NPCs - RS kids.esp RealShelter_ETCPatch.esp RealShelterJKWH.esp RealShelterJKWR.esp ETaC-Atlas Patch.esp ETaC - BOYD NPC Fix @Daagar: Yeah, sometimes I think it's more trouble than it's worth but it's hard to lose some mods once you get used to them. A lot of those mods don't update often, if ever, so it hasn't been a problem. The main ones you don't want to remerge are weapon and armor mods since I renumbered the form IDs and remerging changes them ( at least I have had some naked npcs after remerging them and I think that's the cause ). To keep it simple I have a profile in MO with just vanilla, masters, and whatever MEGA I'm remerging. I have copied all of the merged esps into seperate folders ( ie MEGA1 Folder ), set it to hidden in the original folder and can easily activate/deactivate the mods when I need to. Saves me a ton of time.

Not off the top of my head but my general strategy has always been to put them in the same order as the mods they patch.

https://pastebin.com/5aaADCPd

Great, thanks for the response CJ. I hope everything gets better for you, you certainly are missed around here.

Hey guys I'm thinking of starting a new playthrough and trying JK's mods instead of ETAC for a change and am wondering if the REGS specific mods, such as boat bobbing, better entrances, and better docks, should be used without etac or if they address other changes from other mods that I'm not thinking of. Thanks.

Does anyone know which mod assigns F2 to a spell or, at least, how to check which keys are assigned to functions? I'm not even sure what spell it is, I was just trying to set equipment to F2 via SkyUI but when I press F2 a green spell is cast. It isn't an aggressive spell, at least it didn't upset the mage in Whiterun when I hit him with it, and the equipment still works simultaneously but I'd like to reassign the spell if I could. I've looked through all of the mcm menus and I haven't been able to find it. Thanks. edit: Never mind, I finally found it. It's "Come Together N Out of the Way/Nausicca's Tweaker" of all things.

Thanks for the info, hishutup.

Sorry, I missed that it was under your suggestions where you don't use elfx. I do use elfx, along with relighting skyrim, via srle, and ele, but I don't use the enhancer. That's where I was getting confused. I thought you guys were saying not to use them because srle doesn't use the enhancer either and that maybe the meshes were made for enhancer compatability, not just elfx. I think I've just confused everyone who follows this thread. My bad.

I guess I always assumed that they were elfx adjusted parallax meshes. So the vivid patches and the 4k parallax mines elfx meshes don't have parallax enabled? Is that just not possible?

Why shouldn't we install the elfx meshes? i have been installing them but am just curious if I'm doing it wrong. Is it because they are only for the ELFX enhancer? I don't use that but do use ELE.

When I was using BOSS they were all near the end of my LO but, after being fed up with Skyrim Sorcery, I ran Loot out of frustration and, like magic, everything began to run great. I was a harsh critic of this knee-jerk reaction to switching to LOOT but it quickly made a believer out of me and my impossible LO. Loot places RS somewhere in the middle of my LO and puts the etac patch right behind it. The RSPatcher is lower in the order. Looking at it in tes5edit, however, makes me think that it's not really going to make a difference. Most of the conflicts are due to the Worldspace categories, not the individual edits themselves, so placing it too low will actually cause some conflicts that have nothing to do with RS itself. As far as the edits RS makes, I don't understand how it does it completely but it doesn't conflict with any other mods. The etac patch, for example, doesn't open the same edits as etac does and then adjust some variable but instead inserts its own edits that don't directly coincide with any edits any other mod is making. It's almost like it's making a force field on another plane or something...it doesn't add a property to an etac structure but instead adds it's own thing where that structure is that doesn't rely on the structure itself. If etac were to move a building I suspect that the area RS dealt with would still be free from rainfall, despite a roof/cover no longer being present. The only Loot metadata I added was an edit to Real Water 2, placing it after RS because there were some conflicts there. Again, nothing that RS added directly but instead a sub-edit/temporary that coincided with the larger worldspace that real water should control. This is a confusing read, I know, but I hope it helps.

Yeah, I have a full REGS set up (well, short a few quests ) and it runs really well. I'm using the RS ETAC patch. There's also a patch for JK's Windhelm and Whiterun. I tried merging the three but was showing quite a few errors in one of them (Whiterun, if I remember right ) so the merge didn't work so I just left out the JK ones. It really should just affect a few places, I'm thinking. ETAC was definitely the main patch I needed/wanted. I was running short on esp slots at the time but I cut out a few things since then so maybe I'll give the other patches a try. I told him about the errors and I got the impression he wasn't getting any so I was a little confused where the miscommunication was. Obviously some of the additions (moon and star, snowbound acres, thirteenoranges's, etc...) won't have compatibility without a patch but that's not a huge deal since all of the vanilla and etac does.