Step Patch - Conflict Resolution : Why it's great and why I can't use it.

[Bushranger]

Step Modifications is excellent!

I definitely want to say that first because not following the guide may not be the right way to start a post.  Step has brought me back to putting together a collection of mods and reading the guides and the forum threads has helped me remember what I had done and taught me what to do next. Hopefully I'll have a nice modded Skyrim that I can play for a few years more. 

The Step Patch - Conflict Resolution has some really neat things that it solves. I really like that it fixes the conflict between the Cutting Room Floor and Savros Aren's Regret's Restore - Cut Content mod. There are many other things in the Conflict Resolution patch that I find attractive about Step's SkyrimSE v2.3 guide that I would love to use it. Unfortunately there is just too much I personally don't like to play with requiring the patch to cleaned of masters.

• I'm not a fan of having every creation piled into the game all at once and so remove most of them and just have the ones I would like for each playthrough just like any other mods.
• I prefer vanilla spells and perks so I don't want to play with Odin - Skyrim Magic Overhaul or Vokrii - Minimalistic Perks of Skyrim.
• Consistent Older People requires an AFK Mods account but I saw in the forum thread that it would be optional which I thought sounded great. (Thought I did end up downloading it.)
• At Your Own Pace - College of Winterhold has conflict with Improved College Entry - Questline Tweaks and then Obscure's College of Winterhold and I have been hoping to play with that mod.
• Atlas Map Markers SE is the complete opposite of a mod I would much prefer personally Undiscovered Means Unknown - Map Markers (by Brin_aSair) as I enjoy exploring!
• I also just start each Skyrim game in the wagon, I have used Alternate Start - Live Another Life back in Legendary Edition but it doesn't appeal to me. Starting in the wagon brings me back to 11/11/11 playing the first time with the Dragon Statue staring at me after installing the game.

I tried to clean the Step Patch - Conflict Resolution but the last time I did anything serious with xEdit was several years ago, before i had brain surgery, and I've forgotten a lot. Step Modifications forums has helped A LOT! Thank you! I read several threads and tried to detach all those masters a few times but it's just too much for me and I end up confused with a migraine. So I've removed everything and am starting with a fresh wipe. I'll follow the Step Guide but not closely as I won't be using Step's Conflict Resolution Patch

I would like to use all of these mods from Step's Guide but as they are all on the Conflict Resolution patch's list can you tell me which conflict with the other? That would help.

• USSEP
• Worldspace Transition Tweaks - Skyrim To Solstheim
• Cathedral Landscapes
• Better Dynamic Snow
• Book Covers
• Embers XD
• Realistic Water Two
• AI Overhaul
• Better Stealth AI for Followers
• Realistic AI Detection SE
• Hearthfire Extended

I've also never done anything to mod Skyrim's audio sounds before but looking over the list, reading the forums threads and the mod pages that are listed it is interesting. I would like to try them as well but they also have some conflicts.

Ah well, it's never been easy putting together a list like this when I don't follow it exactly.

[z929669]

On 11/12/2025 at 12:11 AM, Bushranger said:

Step Modifications is excellent!

I definitely want to say that first because not following the guide may not be the right way to start a post.  Step has brought me back to putting together a collection of mods and reading the guides and the forum threads has helped me remember what I had done and taught me what to do next. Hopefully I'll have a nice modded Skyrim that I can play for a few years more. 

The Step Patch - Conflict Resolution has some really neat things that it solves. I really like that it fixes the conflict between the Cutting Room Floor and Savros Aren's Regret's Restore - Cut Content mod. There are many other things in the Conflict Resolution patch that I find attractive about Step's SkyrimSE v2.3 guide that I would love to use it. Unfortunately there is just too much I personally don't like to play with requiring the patch to cleaned of masters.

• I'm not a fan of having every creation piled into the game all at once and so remove most of them and just have the ones I would like for each playthrough just like any other mods.
• I prefer vanilla spells and perks so I don't want to play with Odin - Skyrim Magic Overhaul or Vokrii - Minimalistic Perks of Skyrim.
• Consistent Older People requires an AFK Mods account but I saw in the forum thread that it would be optional which I thought sounded great. (Thought I did end up downloading it.)
• At Your Own Pace - College of Winterhold has conflict with Improved College Entry - Questline Tweaks and then Obscure's College of Winterhold and I have been hoping to play with that mod.
• Atlas Map Markers SE is the complete opposite of a mod I would much prefer personally Undiscovered Means Unknown - Map Markers (by Brin_aSair) as I enjoy exploring!
• I also just start each Skyrim game in the wagon, I have used Alternate Start - Live Another Life back in Legendary Edition but it doesn't appeal to me. Starting in the wagon brings me back to 11/11/11 playing the first time with the Dragon Statue staring at me after installing the game.

I tried to clean the Step Patch - Conflict Resolution but the last time I did anything serious with xEdit was several years ago, before i had brain surgery, and I've forgotten a lot. Step Modifications forums has helped A LOT! Thank you! I read several threads and tried to detach all those masters a few times but it's just too much for me and I end up confused with a migraine. So I've removed everything and am starting with a fresh wipe. I'll follow the Step Guide but not closely as I won't be using Step's Conflict Resolution Patch

I would like to use all of these mods from Step's Guide but as they are all on the Conflict Resolution patch's list can you tell me which conflict with the other? That would help.

• USSEP
• Worldspace Transition Tweaks - Skyrim To Solstheim
• Cathedral Landscapes
• Better Dynamic Snow
• Book Covers
• Embers XD
• Realistic Water Two
• AI Overhaul
• Better Stealth AI for Followers
• Realistic AI Detection SE
• Hearthfire Extended

I've also never done anything to mod Skyrim's audio sounds before but looking over the list, reading the forums threads and the mod pages that are listed it is interesting. I would like to try them as well but they also have some conflicts.

Ah well, it's never been easy putting together a list like this when I don't follow it exactly.

The only way to really know what plugins conflict is by viewing your LO in xEdit. There's too many to provide any clear guidance here other than USSEP conflicts with most other plugins in some way or another (and USSEP should be overridden in most cases except where it shouldn't ... I know that's vague, but everything is circumstantial).

As I usually suggest to people wanting to do a custom build based on a Step build (or our build process/baseline): First install Step completely (except the LOD patches, which are strictly LO specific, but still worth generating to fully validate the build). If you KNOW you don't want to use a particular mod, leave that out UNLESS it's required by one of the Step Patches. Once you have the Step build validated as 'working', then you can go about removing masters (Step Patch dependencies) one at a time (review this topic for good methods of ding that in xEdit). Sort your LO using LOOT every time you make changes to the LO.

Once you have those dependencies cleared, you can disable each of those mods and begin adding mods you want, one at a time, beginning with the simplest plugins (those likely to have the smallest number of potential conflicts). Save the big ones for last, as they will likely require some patching with your custom mods added previously. 

If you have your definitive mod list, you can always load them all at once, sort, and review/patch conflicts, but that is a bit daunting, since there will be lots of conflicts. It helps to only load plugins with conflicts to reduce noise (or eliminate shown conflicts using xEdit modgroups).

[Bushranger]

There really are a lot of masters that I'm removing, especially that I'm also removing most of the creations that Anniversary Edition has added, so I'll be clearing the Step Patch - CR of more than half.  I do see what you are saying that it's too much to ask for a quick overview of which conflicts those mods will give to a list of mods I'm still putting together.  I'll skip almost every mod that is a Step Patch - CR master and I'm reading up on everything I am including.  By reading the forum discussions I've found things like ELFX Fixes Ragged Flagon Fix.esp that have been included into the Step Patch which is why it's instructed to disable in the guide, but because I won't be using it I'll keep enabled.

I'll see what I can do on the weekend then because the Step Build is amazing

 

Anyone who is reading this I strongly recommend to follow the instructions on the guide!

[Bushranger]

I'm blaming x929669  that my whole weekend has gone to going over what I've now named Step Skyrim SE v2.3 Apocrypha because how much I'm deviating from the guide has put me many hours researching all the mods I'm using, skipping, cleaning from Step Patch - Conflict Resolution and looking for patches for holes that will be left. Not to mention loosing a few hours work when notepad closed before being saved! Or how Voices EN - Part 1 keeps aborting the download at around 40% because of an internal server error (401) and Nexus support email instructing me to instead open a forum discussion about that.

 

These two short and direct YouTube guides from biggie_boss along with those forums threads have been helpful!

Now I'm trying to alter things as well because even with Odin cleared as a Master for the Step Patch it is still referenced in a lot of places with Audible Overhaul...

Honestly Thankyou to x929669 as much as it has given me headaches and confusion over the weekend it has helped me remember some of these things and learn some new ones. Also Thankyou Mercury71 for reminding me it's not just the CR patch I'll have to look over.

This is the most work I've done since I had brain surgery a few years ago and it's taken quite some time to recover. I don't think I'll ever be able to do what I used to but it's good to try.

[Bushranger]

Seems I should edit the title of this discussion because it looks like I will be using the Step CR Patch. I think I've managed to remove the need for the most of the Creations leaving just Survival and Saint's & Seducers. At Your Own Pace - College of Winterhold, Vrokii - Minimalistic Perks of Skyrim and Odin - Skyrim Magic Overhaul have also been cleaned from the patch after going through looking through it closely. Fingers crossed it'll hold up!

I was planning to clean more but I learnt more about Atlas Map Markers so with the settings and a patch came to a way to use it. I also saw that with Alternate Start there is still an option to begin the game on the Wagon into Helgen... so if that's the case why am I trying to work to remove it just so I can start my next game that way?

So far almost everything is Step Guide v2.3, except for a few skipped mods and none of the optional choices, and I loaded the game everything seems to be working. It is before Step 5 so there is no grass cache but everything looks good.

  

I think the next steps before that are to now finish setting out the mods I'm going to use that come from outside the Step Guide, when that's all set up and my collection of Step Apocrypha is done and working together nicely I'll move on to Step 5.

Edited Wednesday at 06:31 AM by Bushranger