Need Mod Recommendations

[mentaltyranny]

First, I am unsure if I am listing this topic in the correct place.  If not, thanks to the moderators for moving this topic to the appropriate subforum!

 

I have been following STEP since it was a downloadable .pdf in the early days of Skyrim.  Before the release of Heartfire, I stopped playing Skyrim; not because I wasn't enjoying it, but rather I was enjoying it so much that I wanted to play the earlier Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles and I was afraid Skyrim would "spoil" me.  Now I am back, and I am midway in the installation a STEP Core & Extended + Survival Pack, and I am looking for just a handful of extra mods to round out my experience.  I also noticed that some of my old favorite mods are no longer included in STEP, and I am wonder why?  Second, experience playing the earlier SE/FO titles has taught me that couple mod features are essential to my enjoyment of the ES gameplay experience.  So if any of you could please take a look at these mods, tell me why they were dropped from STEP, whether they conflict with my STEP configuration, and if there are any superior or more lore-friendly alternatives?  This information will save me from the - find a conflict, diagnose, replace mods, start a new game, repeat - cycle!  Without further ado:

 

1. First, I want to verify that iNeed from the Survival STEP pack is compatible with STEP Core and Extended.  I know that Realistic Needs and Diseases has a conflict with Radiant and Unique Potions and Poisons HD, and I want to make sure iNeed is good.
2. Better Followers - this was one of my favorite mods for Skyrim.  I really liked how it made the use of followers more interesting AND choice of followers more interesting, all while sticking to the lore (technically better than vanilla does).  However, it hasn't been upgraded since April 2012, so I don't know if there are incompatibilities with Dawnguard and Dragonborn.  If it does work with current STEP, can somebody recommend a mod that levels follower skills appropriately to work with this mod, as the suggested on its nexus page.
3. Deadly Dragons, lore-friendly version - I know the full version went a little wild with feature creep, but the lore-friendly version really made dragon fights momentous and epic feeling.  Unless the vanilla dragon battles were improved by Dragonborn, I really feel like this is a must.
4. Thuumic - who doesn't want to shout shouts!  This was a blast, and I definitely want it. It looks like Skyvoice is a more current alternative.  Please tell me one of this will work with STEP.
5. AH Hotkeys - I am physically disabled, and having the ability to have flame equipped, and by pushing one button to switch to restoration, cast fast heal, and switch back to flame, would really keep me competitive.  I hope that is what this mod means by autocast... I know other hotkey mods use different lingo.  I know this walks the line between a convenient feature and a cheat, but it really adds to my enjoyment.  Any chance this is already in SkyUI?  It is hard to tell from the intro benchmarks.
6. D13 Skyrim Leveled items can level up Unique upgrade balanced - in Oblivion, nothing annoyed me more than finding out this cool unique item I have would still be competitive if I just waited a few more levels before acquiring it.  I know the counter-arguments, it just really bothered me.  But I really don't like this Hammer of Experience thing either; I would prefer it unique items just automatically leveled up with me, if uniques - and just uniques - were unleveled in a "more power as less accessible from game start" or at least lore-friendly way.
7. Any mod that fixes the timing and randomness of radiant quests would be helpful.  I found that the whole Radiant quests at the end of a quest line to be a letdown.  They should have came first, or at least evenly mixed in the quest lines.  I was also annoyed that the best Radiant quests were also "rare" meaning you had to slog through repetitive quests to get to them.  I saw Enhanced Skyrim Factions - The Companions Guild, and it is close, but I am planning on playing a SpellSword, so I would like improvement to College of Winterhold as well.  Is Immersive College of Winterhold similar?  Any mods that improve Companions, College of Winterhold, Imperial, Dawnguard and later factions would be helpful.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[TechAngel85]

There are a few more radiant quests than fetching the books for the librarian, but not many. There are also "master" radiant quests that are give by the masters of the different schools of the arts. These quests can only be done once you've reach level 90 or 100, depending on the quest, in the corresponding school. Because magic flat out sucks in Skyrim, few people ever see these quests.

 You can always build you own idea of the perfect radiant quests! Quest building is a pain and takes a long time, though.

[Shadriss]

Truth, Tech.

 

I think that's been the real crux of the problem with the Mages in Skyrim... magic just doesn't cut it. Even at early levels, you just don't have enough juice to take on even a single foe, let alone four or five at once, without resorting to blade or bow, and no self-respecting mage would do that. I've seen a few mods out there that try to address this, but they also tend to add in stuff that's WAY OP that didn't need to be there. Don't supposed you have something in your personal collection to address that, would you?

[TechAngel85]

Truth, Tech.

 

I think that's been the real crux of the problem with the Mages in Skyrim... magic just doesn't cut it. Even at early levels, you just don't have enough juice to take on even a single foe, let alone four or five at once, without resorting to blade or bow, and no self-respecting mage would do that. I've seen a few mods out there that try to address this, but they also tend to add in stuff that's WAY OP that didn't need to be there. Don't supposed you have something in your personal collection to address that, would you?

No, I've been wanting to check out some of the mods that overhaul the magic system but haven't found the time to do so yet. As you've pointed out, so many of these mods go too far beyond the scope of their intent. This is common practice with authors, though. Take ELFX, for example. It's a lighting mod that should only alter the lighting and effects in the game and work within the confines of that scope. However, it goes beyond scope by altering meshes to accomplish certain lighting situations. Doing this causes a lot of unnecessary issues with mods that also touch those meshes (like BDS). This is also why I've been a big fan of RS over other lighting mods. It stays within the scope of its intent and, thus, doesn't conflict with any of the game's assets.

[mentaltyranny]

Unfortunately, RWT for SKLE is v1.11 and does not mention anything about iNeed in compatibility but does RND. While the same for SSE is v1.25 and does not mention RND but does mention iNeed under compatibility.  So it looks like one is being improved but not the other.  Can I just install the SSE version or is that playing with fire?

Tech, did you get my message about RWT? I am wondering if I can install the SSE version or at least steal that plugin.  Lmk...

[TechAngel85]

Tech, did you get my message about RWT? I am wondering if I can install the SSE version or at least steal that plugin.  Lmk...

You can probably steal the plugin, but you can't use the entire SSE version in classic Skyrim due to files being converted to newer formats.

[Shadriss]

No, I've been wanting to check out some of the mods that overhaul the magic system but haven't found the time to do so yet. As you've pointed out, so many of these mods go too far beyond the scope of their intent.

SO the search continues. I'll let you know if I find anything. So far, I've only found a couple I like that add to Magery in general, but they are all outside STEP mandate, so I never brought them up.