Adding in DLC after Vanilla STEP

[Zelinn]

Doing my first play through of Skyrim and I decided to do it with STEP. I have had STEP up and running with Vanilla Skyrim for a couple weeks and have enjoyed the game a lot so far and was looking at picking up the DLC. I assume that I would need to go back and check through every mod that had a DLC option and remove the vanilla version and add the DLC version, but my question is would that be likely to break my save and would I have to start a new game? Or would it be workable just swapping the mod versions? Thank you.

[deathneko11]

In my experience, most mods are ok mid game to swap from the vanilla version to the dlc version. The tricky part will be making sure that any new plugins are sorted in the right order and maintaining your original load order with the new plugins.

 

There are on occasion, however, where a mod recommends starting a new game if changing the mod version. I have not seen very many of these though, and I don't think there are such mods on STEP.

[Zelinn]

If I'm loading all my mods through Mod Organizer and sorting with BOSS (I don't have any mods beyond STEP mods installed) would that be alright or should I manually note where plugins were in the load order and ensure when I swap mod version the plugin goes to the same spot?

[deathneko11]

Boss is a must for any load order. However, anyone that mods like I do make a good practice of checking over the load order once boss is done sorting. Sometimes boss wants to put a plugin where it shouldn't be. Prod's patches for COT are a good example here.

 

In other words, in this situation it is best to do both just to be sure and safe.

[phazer11]

Personally whenever changing something big (I consider adding DLC's big) I'd start a new game. This is standard policy for me for just about anything anyways unless it's a mod update to a new version or such say a texture mod.

[deathneko11]

what annoys me is when getting 50 hours into a new game, especially one with hardcore difficulty mods installed, and a mod you have had your eye on reaches what you would consider a playable state. Throw that mod in for that playthrough (in this case Sands of Time) and then when you think you are having a blast, BOOM! the mod author introduces massive content update and completely reworked scripts and the only way to update is to start a new game.....Just like getting a new pc part, you save and save and save and when you finally purchase the hardware you have been oggling for weeks and get it in your system, a week later a new generation of that hardware comes out and what you bought all of a sudden lost the glitter and the price plummets.

[Zelinn]

Thanks for the help!