Adding mods outside of STEP

[Halde]

Hi all!

I'm thinking of adding mods outside of the STEP guide to my installation, and I was wondering when to add these? Back in the LE days I recall there being a "guide" in the STEP guide as how to add these. Of course I have to figure out compatibility myself, but take for instance Expanded Towns and Cities, which I would assume would affect lodgen and dyndolod. Can I safely install such mods before doing dyndolod and the others, also just because dyndolod, texgen and lodgen is a daunting and timeconsuming task which I would rather not repeat more than necesary.

And does it even really matter where i put the extra mods in the left pane in MO? I recall with LE, I had them placed in the end, then with bashed patch, fnis step patch and stuff like that in the very end.

Hope it makes sense what I'm asking, and you guys can help!

~Sincerely

Halde

[ButchDiavolo]

1 hour ago, Halde said:

Hi all!

I'm thinking of adding mods outside of the STEP guide to my installation, and I was wondering when to add these? Back in the LE days I recall there being a "guide" in the STEP guide as how to add these. Of course I have to figure out compatibility myself, but take for instance Expanded Towns and Cities, which I would assume would affect lodgen and dyndolod. Can I safely install such mods before doing dyndolod and the others, also just because dyndolod, texgen and lodgen is a daunting and timeconsuming task which I would rather not repeat more than necesary.

And does it even really matter where i put the extra mods in the left pane in MO? I recall with LE, I had them placed in the end, then with bashed patch, fnis step patch and stuff like that in the very end.

Hope it makes sense what I'm asking, and you guys can help!

~Sincerely

Halde

Firstly, make sure you have finished the STEP guide and everything works as it should. Once you are certain it does, be aware that STEP does not support added mods beyond the those in the guide, so you will have to figure out a lot by yourself. Of course people will help you (if possible) if you run into trouble.

After that, you can start adding the mods you like/ want to try. Add them one or a few at a time and check to see if things still work as intended (create a test playthrough). If not, you can troubleshoot the added mods: disable the added mod(s) and check one by one if re-adding causes the problem you experience. You can check in the left pane of MO2 if the added mods overwrite already installed STEP mods. In MO2 you can see which files are conflicting in the "conflicts" tab of the overwriting mod by double clicking the mod in the left pane. You will then have to decide what takes preference and hide the option you don't want. Also you can load you FULL modlist into SSEEdit to check for conflicts. If there are any, you again have to decide which setting has preference. Yet another option is to add the mods you want and then create a Bashed Patch with Wryebash. Use SSEedit to troubleshoot the Bashed Patch, pick the changes you prefer.Then check again if everything still works as intended.

The way *I* add mods is to put them into the categories STEP uses. So Extended Town and Cities would go under "Locations" and any patches for it would go under "Patches". Of course you can deviate from this, if other mods overwrite the things you find essential. In that case move them further down the list in the left pane. Personally, I created a section called "Non-STEP mods" where I put mods that I want to take preference and which are overwritten by STEP mods. But it is up to you how to handle this of course, since it is your modlist. I am just using my way of doing it as an example.

And of course: LOOT is your friend! LOOT will sort the mods in the right pane so they will cause the least amount of conflicts. If you feel that a mod or patch needs to be lower, you can change the meta tag in LOOT. For example: the bashed patch should be as low as possible in the right pane (above dyndolod.esp and occlusion.esp). if it isn't, you can set the meta-tag to "Dynamic patches" and LOOT will load it as low as possible.

As for LodGen, TexGen and DynDOLOD: re-run these once you have tested extensively and are satifsfied with your modlist. Otherwise you will be re-running them over and over again. Also re-run FNIS or Nemesis if you add mods that add animations. These so-called output patches should ALWAYS come last in the left pane.

Once you are happy with your modlist, start a new game! Some mods add references to a saved game, so starting a new game will avoid persistent references from deleted mods etc.

Edited May 15, 2022 by ButchDiavolo
typos... so many typos...

[Halde]

Thank you very much! More or less the response/experience I was looking for. I don't plan to install a lot of other mods, but some, primarily location and perhaps some quest mods.

 

[Greg]

The advice by ButchDiavolo is very good, but you may consider adding a couple of additional steps. Copy your existing Step profile to a new profile named whatever you want. This will give you complete freedom to add whatever you want and you can always revert back to the Step profile if necessary. Also note that if you add any animations, uncheck the Step Nemesis Output mod first and generate use Nemesis to generate animations into a new mod named something like "{Profile Name} Nemesis Output" (where {Profile Name} is the name of your profile. If you change anything that requires re-running xLODGen or DynDOLOD, do the same thing by unchecking Step xLODGen Output and Step DynDOLOD Output and generating into new mods. This way your Step profile remains pristine and you can easily revert to it at any time. Just keep in mind that if you generate animations and/or LOD into the Step output mods, you'll bork the Step profile.