dunc001

NVM - F5d page and it reappeared.

Morning, just catching up after our few days away. Could someone upload the NARC SkyTest patch for me please as it's missing from the Nexus at present?

Can I just confirm re DynDOLOD - from 2.0+ there is now no longer the need to install DynDOLOD as a mod in MO, just the resources/billboards, texgen'd textures and DynDOLOD output once done?

Thanks for the heads up on Men of Winter, definitely adding this to my KS load order.

Thanks Lexy. Out of interest is there a way of me doing the SRLE CR, creating the esp, then opening it again and carrying on adding the SRLEX stuff and saving it a second time to create the esp for my SRLEX profile. Outer should I just do them separately and then merge the two together in Merge Plugins for a single SRLEX CR plugin?

So question. Do we still use the SRLE CR guide and additionally the SRLEX CR guide, or just the SRLEX one on its own? Just asking because the original SRLE guide seems to have way more in it, particularly in Books and Cell.

Excellent Darth, exactly what I'll need on Friday when I get back from traveling and need to catch up!

Exactly what needed to hear, thank you so much. Following on then, once the merges are made and loaded in to MO and activated I had thought I just had to disable the original plugins in the right pane until Lexy advised to just disable the original mods in the left pane. However some of the merges don't include all the esps from the original mod even if they do include all the other mod assets (textures, etc). So the question is, should I be manually checking what is included in each merge mod against each original mod and only disabling the original if everything is included in the merge, otherwise just moving the merged esps up in the optionals tab. Or is it safer just to disabled the original esps in there left pane and accepting that the merge may contain duplicate resources to the originals which whilst taking up space presumably won't cause a problem (rule of one)?

Yes, with a full fresh install of SRLEX minus a few of the female armor mods I have 333 plugins. I figured that I could just uncheck all in the first list that pops up when you open Merge Plugins, then retick the ones needed for each merge plus any dependencies required (MP won't let you load further until you have all the required plugins which can end up forming a bit of a chain as each initial mod dependency you reactivate may well have further esps it relies on and so on). I'll eventually get to a point once the first few larger merges are added and activated in MO that the list loading in to MP is below 255 and will then work fine. Just to make you laugh too my Kitchen Sink Edition is starting out with 465 plugins before I run my merges :p

OK, so more MergePlugins help required please. Two things, first it won't let me error check the Animal Tweaks merge because it says it is going to break a dependency with one of the files in the RoTE merge (hence the renaming of the esp afterwards) - do I need to deactivate that one esp in MO before launching MergePlugins, build the Animal Tweaks merge, rename it, activate it in MO, reactivate the RoTE file, open MP again and then run the RoTE merge? More fundamentally first however, MergePlugins won't let me build any merges. Every time I try it throws an error telling me 'Maximum load order reached. Can't create ...'. How do I get round that?

Are the armour progression mods for female armour only?

Thanks Lexy. What about the errors in the initial Check Errors window - just ignore them unless they stop me from being able to build the merge? Edit - Sorry, just saw Paul's reply!

So after what seems like hundreds of hours over the last couple of weeks I have now got everything installed (minus the last three days updates!) in three separate MO profiles - SRLE, SRLEX and SRLEX Kitchen Sink Edition (REGS and other stuff added). I have all of the LOOT metadata updated, all the TES5Edit cleaning done, all the DDSOpt done, etc. I am now starting on the mod merges and need some clarification (bear in mind first time doing this!). I am running through the SRLE merges, then the SRLEX merges then adapting any for extra stuff in SRLEX-KSE so I will be well practised! However I am on the first one in the SRLE guide for Bathing in Skyrim and I am confused or over-thinking it. It says in the linked guide to Check for Errors and correct any found before building the merge. In the Check log there are two what I assume are errors, one in SIC and one in RRRE to do with NAVM. However once I'd figured out the whole contigious in load order thing these errors didn't seem to be anything that stopped me from being able to successfully build the merge. Can these be classed as minor and therefore ignored (I read something about having to ESMify the merge and open in CK to delete and rebuild the NAVI?)? Anyway, I decided to ignore them and build the merge, which was successful. On closing Merge Plugins the new mod did indeed appear in the MO left pane. Do I now go ahead and deactivate the four (now merged) original esps in the right pane? Do I also uncheck the original mods in the left pane, leaving just the new merged mod active? There are NO instructions for this final step in the guides...

Well across the two lists we've got 10 mods that are listed as benefiting from optimisation: A Quality World Map Better Circlets DB Tenets Restored HD Ore & Ingots HQ Paper More Realistic Hair Septim HD Trees HD Falskaar Helgen Reborn Plus probably worth including MB Inferno, Moonpath, Gray Cowl and Forgotten City as well (won't take any harm).

Hehe, well I can write this for you and compile the list of relevant mods if you like

Rather than intersperse instructions throughout the load order it would be easier if you had a separate section in the 'Preparations' section of the guide with a list of the mods included in SRLEX which require optimisation, along with instructions to download all of them and use the batch optimisation script to optimise them all in one go and the re-archive script to repack them all ready for MO installation as and when they are required. That way you don't need to recommend settings as the batch script sorts and selectively processes everything. The instructions are all easily available for c/p

Actually just reading through the ddsopt guides and I have found that if you are optimising one mod at a time when you load it in to ddsopt and check Show Recursive the lower panel will actually show if any of the textures have already been optimised (at the current levels set in the ddsopt settings) by displaying the filenames in black strikethrough text. There is also a setting in the Ignore tab to 'Don't process any already processed files (DDS only)' which again will force ddsopt NOT to process an files which it recognises have already been processed at the current settings (they will be processed if the settings are different). So I guess I could just load up my entire load order and use the batch files to process the whole lot and it would ignore any that don't actually need done. However I guess I'll run it on all of the bigger 'worldspace' type mods and any specifically listed in the various links below as benefiting. Some reading: https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:DDSopt_%26_Texture_Overhauls/Mod_Optimization - comprehensive list of mods and whether or not they benefit from optimisation https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:DDSopt - full STEP ddsopt guide https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:DDSopt/Skyrim#STEP_Mods_and_Optimization - More mods listed under STEP Mods and Optimization section

A question - is there any tool around that 'inspects' mods to determine whether or not DDSOpt optimizing is required? If not how do you go about deciding whether it is worth optimizing a mod or not? I know SRLE lists ones needing it, but in the STEP DDSOpt guide they list many more. As I'm also adding a load of stuff from REGS I was wondering how I decide what to optimize and what can be left as it is. I'm guessing if a mod author has already optimized their mod and I run it through DDSOpt again it won't take any harm, just won't have any noticable impact (other than on my time!). And finally, am I best to leave as loose files or repack optimized into bsa again before installing through MO (possibly a redundant question as SRLE has me set MO to automatically unpack bsa on install anyway :p )

Yep, I'd already come to that realisation. I guess the biggest thing is figuring out what actually needs CR rather than just letting the rule of one apply and making sure load order is right. I'll use the SRLE and SRLEX installs for practice and hopefully pick up the pattern/workflow.

Is it there by default or is it part of a separate set of scripts? Sorry to ask but I'm at work and can't check!

Yeah, I've read through the CR section of the manual several times and have been studying the various CR step by step breakdowns you guys have posted. I've just been reading though the Merge Plugins forum pages which give lists of successful merges so I'll be having a go merging a few more to free up slots too. As far as CR goes I'm going to manually do the SRLE and SRLEX CR following Neo/yor/Lexy's guides to get a better feel for what and why, and then try and do one for the Kitchen Sink. One thing I'm struggling with - on Lexy's guide there's mention of a Report Masters script as part of an esp plugin. What is this referring to as I can't find any mention anywhere else? Are either of you guys on chat anywhere BTW - I'm a pretty quick learner but could always do with guidance!

Well what I'm actually doing is building three MO profiles in parallel - SRLE, SRLEX and SRLEX Kitchen Sink Edition. So I'll have the first two stable and the final one to practice my CR skills! I'm quite happy to put in the time learning the ins and outs of good CR. It will all need updated again when Last Seed and Swordfall drop anyway (along with any of the other big DLC type mods still hovering in the ether...). And whilst REGS hasn't been updated many of the mods have. The step by step CR guides for REGS and Lexy's one for SRLEX give a good indication of the sort of conflicts to concentrate on, and the 170 page FNV4Edit Manual is very clear on CR. I may be naive but hey, everybody loves a trier!

So I have finally come to my senses and decided against both RND and PerMa :p But I am going for SRLEX and REGS. This means dropping most of the Arthmoor villages mods. I'm also adding in Beyond Reach, Summerset Isle, AGO/N2T/ABT, Claralux and Sneak Tools (plus one or two others I might have forgotten). This will obviously bring me perilously close to 255 so I was wondering - is there a tutorial anywhere for determining which esp's are safe to merge in case I need to further reduce the count? Does anyone reading here already have SRLEX with REGS set up? If so, any words of wisdom?

Well there is that

Thanks, must remember to search before asking... On another note, is there a particular reason why we're using ENB Manager & Changer, which hasn't been updated since 2012, over ENB FXAA SweetFX Manager which is current and still being maintained?