pack A Real Explorer's Guide to Skyrim

[CJ2311]

EDIT: have you already made a pack on the Wiki? Thinking about it, I would actually like to offer you to co-develop this pack! For a long time I've been meaning to to do something like this, and it's time to bring out a definite working and compatible pack for ourselves and the community. I do believe that there will be great public interest in a pack like this as well so that the effort put into it will surely not be in vain.

 

Actually, I haven't even asked for permissions to be able to post a pack on the Wiki yet. I was still thinking of the layout of the page.

I'm shooting you a PM about the co-authoring :)

 

On a side note, I got permission from Nernie to release my patches, so I'll do that when I'm done fixing the navmeshes with duct tape.

[z929669]

In the OP:

 

"6/- Packs:"

is followed by 3 mods ... seems confusing, since a Pack should be composed of a mod list, so I expected these links to be Pack pages.

 

Perhaps you could edit to reflect what mods or concepts you are planning to roll up into your Pack(s)? then, once created, link to a forum thread in here dedicated to the respective Pack(s) for dev notes and community feedback ;)

[CJ2311]

In the OP:

 

"6/- Packs:"

is followed by 3 mods ... seems confusing, since a Pack should be composed of a mod list, so I expected these links to be Pack pages.

 

Perhaps you could edit to reflect what mods or concepts you are planning to roll up into your Pack(s)? then, once created, link to a forum thread in here dedicated to the respective Pack(s) for dev notes and community feedback ;)

By packs, I just meant mods that covered more than one location. I guess I should've used another word :P

 

I'll edit the name to make it clearer.

[z929669]

Got it, thanks, that will help!

[tomtomtommy]

Can see from the wiki recent chnages that you are working hard today!

 

Now that I have two in-depth playthrough under my belt I am really looking forward to this pack, many thanks!

[CJ2311]

That would be Nearox's doing, he wanted to start working on the actual wiki page.

But yeah, we've been working on a lot of compatibility issues these last days, it's just happening backstage :P

 

Really looking forward to your feedback when the pack will be finalized (which should be soon btw)

[Alkira]

Good evening (or good morning for some people),

 

Comment (because I like your pack :)) : You should add the mods needed to be changed from the STEP:Core (to make it compatible with Falskaar when added for example).

 

Great initiative again. Thanks.

 

Alkira.

[Nearox]

Allright, here's a little update from CJ2311 and me. 

 

We've been working on the development of this pack for nearly a week now. You can take a sneak-peek of the current alpha version at https://wiki.step-project.com/Pack:Explorers_Guide

 

A lot of conceptualization and testing had to be done. For instance, our current Whiterun (interior & exterior) version is a combination of 10 mods. After 2 days of trying out different things, we have made a final plan for the initial release. Some mods have seen entire buildings removed or relocated. Others have had NPC's behaviour adjusted. A few needed stylistic adjustments, such as improving low-quality interiors and adding beds for new NPCs which would otherwise stay awake 24/7. The most work however consists of redoing the entire navmesh of the whiterun exterior area in order to get all these mods and npcs to play nice together without ctds or bugs.

 

Some towns and cities are easier done than others, in partuclar thsoe that are already covered by ETaC. We however had to customize, mix & mingle mods for Windhelm, Solitude and Riften which all have had to go through the same process as Whiterun. 

 

We cannot give an ETA yet because often times when something gets fixed, something else breaks. CJ is doing the work in the CK so if you have any technical questions/advice please direct them to him. I am doing the pack wiki and conflict resolution as well as ingame testing. 

 

We believe the end result will be a stunning and mostly lore-friendly improvement. We take great care to select only the best mods and thene even only keep the quality parts of those mods. If you have a comment to make after looking at the wiki, we would like to hear from you!

 

Now back to work :P

[jakeslim]

Looking forward to seeing the results!!

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Allsunday]

Looking good guys! I'm interested in the graphical aspect of this pack (not going to use mods like Room Rental because I'm not doing a STEP playthrough).

[Nearox]

We're using RRR Enhanced because its graphical changes to inns are better than ETaC. They also apply to a higher number of inns than ETaC and there's more consistency. RRR ENhanced does not significantly alter your gameplay - you can still use the vanilla conversation options. 

[CJ2311]

Looking good guys! I'm interested in the graphical aspect of this pack (not going to use mods like Room Rental because I'm not doing a STEP playthrough).

If you're not going to use RRR (which we mentioned solely because it modifies inns' interiors btw, it doesn't affect gameplay at all except for the price of the rooms), you can use the Inns from ETaC as well, they're just as great, but they don't cover all the inns, sadly.

[Alkira]

Good evening,

 

After installing the mods from your pack and began to solve the conflicts, here is what I've found so far (Note that I have installed STEP: Core (Baseline) and the Weather and Lighting Pack. All my records are saved in the STEP Core Patch and renamed each time I add a Pack eg STEP-C+WL+EG Patch currently):

 

 

WORLDSPACE

- 9 ??? I don't see any Block 1,-1 from the path you give;

- 11 No need while using WL Pack;

- 14 Same as above;

- 15 No conflicting files using the WL Pack but I'm not sure it solves the issue by its own;

- 17 No conflict if using STEP Core Patch;

- 19 No conflicting files if using the WL Pack (ELFX exterior.esp overrides the others);

- 21 Why not take the record from the USP? (this is only to better understand how you solve issues; currently I'm only able to solve minor conflicts using TES5Edit);

- 23 No need while using STEP Core Patch;

- 26 No conflict?? ELFX exterior overrides but no conflict was to happen without it (same record as Sky Haven);

- 27 Same as above;

- 28 Same as above;

- 29 STEP Core Patch takes care of the conflict again;

- 30 Same as above;

- 33 ELFX overrides.

 

 

 

I'm not sure it will be of any help but it might be of interest for anyone mixing the packs available out there.

 

Alkira.

[Nearox]

@ Alkira

 

Thank you for reporting this.It'll prove useful as a double check before we do the initial beta release.

 

Do keep in the mind the modlist is not final. SOme mods may not even be downloaded as we have made our own esps for them containing new navmeshes, removal of buildings/npcs, uskp forwards, compatibily etc. Also at the moment we have confined testing to vanilla + USKPs. Making the pack stable with STEP Core is going to be the next priority. At the moment we are not sure if STEP:Core compatibility will be in the initial beta release. Getting it to work with just vanilla+uskps is already proving a challenge :)

[Alkira]

@ Alkira

 

Thank you for reporting this.It'll prove useful as a double check before we do the initial beta release.

 

Do keep in the mind the modlist is not final. SOme mods may not even be downloaded as we have made our own esps for them containing new navmeshes, removal of buildings/npcs, uskp forwards, compatibily etc. Also at the moment we have confined testing to vanilla + USKPs. Making the pack stable with STEP Core is going to be the next priority. At the moment we are not sure if STEP:Core compatibility will be in the initial beta release. Getting it to work with just vanilla+uskps is already proving a challenge :)

Hi Nearox,

 

I've just played 1 hour till now without any issue (no CTD, ILS nor freeze at all even around Whiterun). This is only the basic test I make each time to be sure the game launch. I didn't stress the graphics nor the weather and I have some more conflicts to solve (beginning with the last of your conflict resolution steps;)) but it sounds good. My journey has just begun. I will carry on the last conflict resolution steps you recommend and report the results.

 

I understand your challenges and hope to be of better help next time.

Thanks.

 

Edit: grammar corrections.

Edit 2: Ok, I've seen an update of the STEP Core. Then I think about updating my patch but I'm not sure of the easier way to do so. Any advice ? Can I just make a merged patch (using a merge script) with the new STEP Core and mine ? Thanks for any help.

 

Alkira.