dunc001

What overwrites Arthmoor villages? EL? Doesn't bother me because I've removed all but two of them and replaced them with ETaC and some other new settlements from REGS. I'm thinking EL>EVT>TreesHD load order and see how it looks...

Using his custom meshes and textures means that TreesHD only overwrites stuff for tree clutter, even if you use the EVT HQ clutter option. I'm going to go the whole hog with Large Lush Custom, HQ clutter, RAT and parallax. And remove the original RAT and SBT stuff.

Or drop SBT and go with his Large Lush Custom Trees version? In his forum posts he is endorsing using his EVT with TreesHD (which we already have). In this instance TreesHD would need to be directly below EVT in the left pane.

I've just downloaded Rudy and run through that guide whilst having a quick coffee break (perks of being the boss!). Seemed pretty straightforward - there was only one change in the ini other than in the TIMEOFDAY section. There's already a lot in Rudy in terms of weather so I'm hoping it won't clash. I might try it on my working SRLEX setup if I can figure out how to install a second ENB and switch using the ENB switcher!

Care to share your modded Phinix? I quite like the way it looks in general and if it means I don't have to faff about with the ENB Night Vision mod (and it's associated esp!) I'd be a happy man. Actually what I'd really like to do is adapt Rudy ENB to work with Vivid Weathers but I'm not sure if it's achievable - don't suppose you've looked into it at all? I'll be interested to hear your views tomorrow on the trees and flora stuff too.

Thanks Darth, I'll hang fire. I did look at the Integration project to see if they were on the ball. And thanks for the Wonders of Weather tip. I think I'll end up with around 30 mods in the Landscape Environment and Clutter merge :p Haha, that's funny guys! I guess it's one of those things - actually managing to build and maintain a massively modded Skyrim becomes almost a game in itself and you get as much enjoyment out of doing all this as you do out of the game. When I set out on this I was adamant I wouldn't let this be the case and the end goal was actually an awesome playthrough. Lines have become somewhat blurred over the past couple of months! However my 14 year old son is badgering me to get a move on so he can actually play the game so I need to get my finger out. A quick question regarding ENB: My son loves to play as a Khajit and uses Night Eye a lot - do I need to use https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50731/? ? I'm using Gopher's Predator Vision as well. Thanks. I dropped SFO as per the SRLEX guide anyway. How does Verdant fare in terms of fps drop out of interest? I wasn't planning on adding a grass mod and just going with Enhanced Landscapes but if it's not too serious I may take a look.

Yeah, I downloaded it all last night. I'm just trying to figure out what needs to come out or where it all needs to go in the load order in relation to (presumably) Enhanced Landscapes which does trees, and SBT. Any suggestions?

Soooo close! I've got my plugin count reduced down from 465 to 269 so far. I'm aiming for 240-245 so still a bit too go. There are 5 lvl list esp's which will disappear into the bashed patch, and I still have the ETaC patches to merge (there are twelve of which i think 10 are OK to merge). There's been a LOT of renaming of merged esp's, and changing masters in other esp's to look at new merged ones. I've had to rebuild NAVI records in the CK for a couple of the merges but so far it's all looking good. I've been resorting to meeting in twos and threes on occasion to make sure I keep some sort of order and a lot of checking of textures and order in the left pane. One more session tonight and I should finally be there... Edit: Cool, I'd missed yesterday's update to the landscape merge adding Moss Rocks and Water Plants. I'll pull them out of the Ruffled Feather into a new folder and merge them in from there. Two more down! After I updated SkyTEST however I'm going to have to lock out any further updates otherwise I'm never going to get to actually play a game!

Well, TBBP and CBBE are the pornstar bodies which imho look just ridiculous in a game that we're all adding as much immersion and realism to as we can. Each to their own I guess.

The only other thing I did was to use the UNPB/BBP (SFW) versions of all of the Fading Pride stuff rather than the CBBE versions as per the guide. I basically downloaded all of the standalone versions of what is contained within the SRLE Extended AIO, and replaced all the files within the AIO as required. Oh, and I dropped Recorder and Merta Assassin Armor for the same reason.

Sorry, what I was meaning was if it would also get merged into the bashed patch and disabled afterwards why does it need to be included in the weapons and armour merge which obviously then doesn't get disabled?

Duh, yes. Not awake yet! Does the same not supply to to the faction crossbows lvl list patch which is included in the the weapons merge then?

Is it safe to merge the four CACO lvl lst patches in the Dreadflopps mod? I've got my count down from 460+ to 299 so far, only another 60ish to go...

Thanks Paul. How do I do the renaming using TES5Edit?

Bloody hell, just doing the mod merging for my extended extended load order is taking me forever! So not looking forward to the CR... Anyhoo, question for anyone who knows - one of the mods I have added is Cliffside Cottage (player home) which has Vivid Weathers.esp as one of it's masters (it's in the Tamriel worldspace so interacts with weather). Vivid Weathers.esp is obviously now part of Vivid Weathers - Merged.esp and I don't want to simply rename that esp given that the guide points out the mod author requires this exact naming convention. So I am wondering if I can use WryeBash and rename the required master in the Cliffside Cottage plugin to Vivid Weathers - Merged.esp (plugin details tab, right click on Vivid Weathers.esp and rename)? Would this be OK?

Excellent, thanks for the advice. Plugin count before I started doing the core/SRLEX merges was somewhere in the high 400s :p I haven't added many additional weapons or armour mods (maybe four or five, and I've removed a few from the SRLEX list), it's mainly the REGS stuff (quests, world spaces, JK Lite & ETaC Complete, 3DNPCs, etc). I've added in Beyond Reach and Summerset, I've added two player homes but removed Jaggarsfeld, I've added in Horses On Patrol, Hunterborn, AGO/ABT/N2T, Sneak Tools, etc. Lots of little things which for some reason contain esps (Simple Potions). I've added a lot of retextures/animations/meshes which don't have esps so don't add to my plugin count. I didn't add Fat Bastards in Skyrim ;) Oh, and I did add Harry Potter spells just for a laugh :D And please, just call me Dunc. Only my mother calls me dunc001 ;)

No problem following it. One thing I would say is it would be better listing the actual esp names required rather than just the mod names as I found myself a couple of times having to abort, load up different esps and then start again (CWI ELFX patch springs to mind as the list just says Immersive College of Winterhold). The descriptions for why things are being done are pretty concise. Both CR guides (yours and Neo's) take as read an understanding of what each record is (assuming whoever is doing it actually wants to understand why they're moving certain values and ignoring others rather than just blindly plodding through it). As there is so much to get through I have just been entering the FormIDs in the box in the top left and clicking Enter to jump directly to the next record rather than manually locating it - I guess that's the right way to do it? Colour coding is good BTW :) A quick question - how do I edit the NPC Retextures Merge to remove Ivarstead as a required master? In my extended load order I have removed most of the Arthmoor Villages in favour of JK Lite and ETaC, and Ivarstead is one of the ones which has gone. I know I could create a dummy esp but I'd rather remove it and clean the merge esp.

Astakos, thanks again for another excellent reply. I've already done the CRs manually for SRLE and SRLEX, however my full build doesn't include some core and SRLEX mods so I'm going to have to do one enormous CR manually following all of the SRLE and SRLEX CR, then adding in the SRLE/REGS CR where still relevant, then going through each of the remaining additional mods record by record as you suggest. However I'm still trying to get my plugin count down by a further 120 or so after all the core and ext merges so I may be some time!

Yeah, they're the same images used in the FNVEdit guide. The image which shows the filters to select is confusing as it shows A-E, says check all 6, but shows two of them unchecked! Using the MBI LODs, and the DynDOLOD MBI patch as well before running TexGen? TexGen Output in MO and activated and DynDOLOD Temp folder deleted from Overwrite before running DynDOLOD? I haven't installed MBI so can't check but I did have problems until I figured out all of these missing/out of order requirements before it would work perfectly.

Sorry if I'm being thick here, but how do you know where the conflicts are if you're not applying any filters? Every guide seems to say a different thing, all I want to know is after I open TES5Edit with all esps selected, once the background lower has finished what should I do next? I've manually done the complete SRLE CR, and am working through the Ext CR manually, but when I come to doing the additional CR for everything else I've added I am just looking to understand what the best way to proceed would be - filters/modgroups/etc if anything? Thank you everyone for all the advice thus far. I hope I'm not being a pain.

OK, anyone care to share what filters they apply in TES5Edit? I'm all the way through the SRLE CR but I'm pretty sure that I'm not using the correct filters as there just seems to be way too much to look at! I have been clicking Apply Filter then having everything in the 'by conflict status overall' and 'by conflict status for this particular record' boxes checked, plus 'Conflict status inherited by parent' and that's all. Is this right as it was the only way I could seem to get some of the records to appear?

Anyone use ModGroups with TES5Edit when doing CR? Care to explain to a noob how to do it?

OK thanks, I'll ask Neo too. IMHO any possible merges are worth considering seeing as after I've done all of the SRLE and SRLEX merges I still need to reduce the plugin count in my KS profile by a further 120! (Laughs maniacally...) Out of interest, what checkboxes do you have ticked in the Apply Filter window when you are doing your CR? And do I need to run LOOT to sort the load order before I open TES5Edit to do the CR (after I've done all of the merges)? Also, there's no mention of a merged patch in either of the guides - I'm assuming this isn't needed when we're doing this full CR? Sorry for all the questions, I'll only ask them once!

Is it maybe something to do with which filters I am checking in the TES5Edit Apply Filter window? I was following the instructions in the video linked in the header on the SRLE CR guide page - https://www.youtube.com/embed/rqAvJKGdPbU?autoplay=1&autohide=1&rel=0 I know, but you said before I had to do the full SRLE CR first, and then the SRLEX as a separate CR esp with both being used (or merged into one)? Did I misunderstand?

OK, so on to CR now and I'm running through the SRLE CR first as Lexy instructed. I appear to have hit a hurdle at the second record in the list! Armor Addon XX00130A SteelCuirassAAWhite_AMBXX = Index of aMidianBorn_ContentAddon.esp Conflict Resolution: Use record from aMidianBorn_ContentAddon.esp then change the Female World Model > Alternate Texture > 3D Name to "SteelArmor" and the 3D Index to "0". Problem Resolved: Error in the aMidianBorn Content Add-on plugin prevented display of the female steel armor with white fur texture. This doesn't exist? I have tried searching the FormID (4700130A in my case) and the EditorID, I've even looked through everything in the ContentAddon under the Armor Spreadsheet tab in TES5Edit and I can't find SteelCuirassAAWhite_AMB anywhere. I have downloaded and reinstalled the ContentAddon again and made sure I am using the Improved Closedfaced Helmets version of the esp, but still no joy. Am I missing something here or is this one record now spurious/not required in the CR?