Step Extended with survival elements (i.e. Frostfall, Realistic Needs and Diseases)

[oqhansoloqo]

Hello,

 

I just finished installing all of STEP Core and then afterwards all of STEP Extended (except for "No Menu and Loading Smoke" mod, because I happen to like the smoke - thank you very much.. j/k lol).  Planning on introducing some survival mods to this...

 

Looking at the Packs available, there appear to be 2 survival-focused packs currently listed in STEP: "Immersive Survival" and "Survival".  I like the sound of a number of the mods in these packs, specifically "Frostfall" and "Realistic Needs and Diseases".  The packs themselves mention how they are compatible with STEP Core, and one (Survival) briefly mentions but not too much about Extended compatibility.  But there is no mention about the specific installation changes that have to be made to the STEP Extended setup in order to incorporate the survival mods properly.  In fact, I specifically remember at least one of the Extended mod installations having a "Frostfall" option (which I did not select at that time) and I don't remember which one(s) had such options (maybe Wet and Cold, not sure...).  My question is, can I incorporate "Frostfall" and "Realistic Needs and Diseases" easily to an Extended setup, or are they going to break anything?

 

And this leads to more questions: It seems like having those two mods installed make a few other mods rather important to also perhaps install.  Will "Hunterborn" and/or "Harvest Overhaul" be necessary in order to harvest enough food/hide/fur required to meet legitimate survival requirements?  Will "Cloaks of Skyrim" and "Winter is Coming" be necessary in order to have an appropriate selection of cloaks available to protect from exposure to various weather conditions?  Are there any other important complimentary mods to "Frostfall" and "Realistic Needs and Diseases"?

 

For STEP Core and Extended, I feel like I got all the fine-tuning details down nicely with the mod installation instructions, applications, DDSOpting, TES5Edit cleaning, Wyre Bash patching, Dual Sheath Redux patching, and FNIS patching... whew... a lot of fine tuning in the setup.  Took me a couple weeks, actually... and I have two separate MO profiles set up so I could switch between Core setup and Extended setup without doing anything more than switching profiles.  I'm pondering the thought of creating a third profile based directly off of my Extended profile, in which I can modify whichever mod settings/installations are necessary in order to incorporate the survival mods properly/completely for that profile.  I hope it doesn't mess up the ability of the STEP: Extended Patch to work properly though...

 

Any thoughts/ideas, drawbacks to compatibility or a normal Skyrim gameplay experience?  Thanks. :)  I imagine there are other people out there who will want to add these survival immersion mods to "Extended" as well, (not just Core).

[Smile44]

Yes you can. The Survival pack is fully compatible with STEP Extended. Frostfall is fully compatible as is RND, You can add them into the sections as outlined or add them as a pack at the end of your install (if you are not using MO then that would be the best option).

 

:)

[oqhansoloqo]

Nice - that's good to hear. Are there any issues with finding enough resources for survival without also installing "Hunterborn" or "Harvest Overhaul"?

 

Also, I swear there was, at least, one mod installed with either Core or Extended (probably Extended, and it may have been "Wet and Cold") that had an option for Frostfall that wasn't selected at the time when I installed it because I was installing for Extended only at that time. Do you know which mod(s) have to be altered/reconfigured from Extended to work with the mods in your Survival Pack the best way? (it might be something to also add to the instructions, if you think it's a good idea)

 

I would think that, if anything, player-wearable cloaks (the 2 main cloak mods associated with Frostfall - "Winter is Coming" and "Cloaks of Skyrim") would be most likely to clash with some other mod, like a mod that governs equipment placement on the back of the body, unless they go on the outside of the cloak?

 

PS - I do use Mod Organizer - it's great. :)

[oqhansoloqo]

Here's one example - not the one I was thinking of, because the one that I was thinking of definitely was for some kind of "Frostfall" compatibility selection in a mod (think it was an Extended mod). I have been trying to rerun some of the fomod installers for Extended mods to find the one with the Frostfall option, and while doing so found this: "Disease Descriptions for Immersive Adventurer" (a STEP Extended mod) has an option for "Realistic Needs and Diseases".

---

I "may" have found the STEP Extended mod that I was talking about referring to "Frostfall" compatibility options, because this one does have them in its installer: "XP32 Maximum Skeleton-XPMS".  It has alternate selections for Frostfall quiver placement on lower back (probably due to cloak usage issues).

[Smile44]

I was wondering because as far as I know there are no mods in STEP that cause any problems with those mods, but yes best to install any relevant patches which is just the one for disease descriptions AFAIK.

 

I was suggesting the other smaller Survival pack, rather than Immersive Survival which has a great deal more mods. I have not seen the pack author around for a while but I did test it and it works well. The cloaks issue is simple, you install the main Cloaks.esp from CoS and the CRAFT only plugin from WiC as Wet & Cold distributes the cloaks around the world and on NPCs.

 

I have not tried IS with Extended to be honest but I doubt that there are too many clashes. Try the smaller survival pack install it exactly as instructed and you will have all the mods you need to make survival in skyrim more challenging and immersive.

 

:)

[oqhansoloqo]

What's confusing me now are the detailed instructions for XP32 MS mod:

 

"The installation instructions here support using wearable items from the Wet and Cold STEP mod. Skyrim Revisited includes different installation options that support using items from a different mod (Frostfall). The two installation option sets are not compatible.

 

 

In the installer:

â—¾ Leave the defaults selected for the Required Files.

â—¾ On the "XPMS" page, select "Back Hip Dagger".

â—¾ Also install the Back Hip Dagger equip animation.

 

Remember to run New Idles for Skyrim after installing all mods.

 

Note: these installation options are different than (and incompatible with) the options in Skyrim Revisited."

 

It makes it sound like Wet and Cold and Frostfall are not mutually compatible with XP32 MS, since STEP Extended is suggesting different options depending on whether Wet and Cold or Frostfall are used with it. Do you know why? There isn't enough information for me to understand based off of my own knowledge.

[Smile44]

It's a case of making your own choices. SR:LE is perfectly good to follow or the STEP version. As far as Frostfall goes it is not a patch for Frostfall but just a choice of where on the body you want your weapons to hang - not a compatibility problem.

 

:)

[oqhansoloqo]

I noticed that a lot of NPCs have multiple cloaks on them - for example... In Helgen, when I start a game, a lot of the Stormcloaks will have a Stormcloak cloak and then an extra cloak in their inventory that's something like "Stormcloak Linen Cloak" or something like that. Is this due to some kind of cloak mod conflict, or do these mods do this normally?

[Smile44]

Probably to do with Wet and Cold, it distributes the extra cloaks, are you using the craft only plugin (and no other ones) from WiC?

 

:)

[Alkira]

I noticed that a lot of NPCs have multiple cloaks on them - for example... In Helgen, when I start a game, a lot of the Stormcloaks will have a Stormcloak cloak and then an extra cloak in their inventory that's something like "Stormcloak Linen Cloak" or something like that. Is this due to some kind of cloak mod conflict, or do these mods do this normally?

Good afternoon oqhansoloqo,

 

As far as I know CoS makes people of Skyrim to wear different types of Cloak depending of the regions from where they come. On the other hand, WnC will make people wear even hoods to protect themselves from the weather conditions (rain and snow).

For compatibility reasons you should use (option 1) the CRAFTING version of WIC altogether with CoS as it is suggested in the Survival Pack's guide (from Smile44:)) OR use (option 2) the compatibility patch but it is better to vote for option 1 (IMO:) for less plugins and best compatibility otherwise it makes a lot of cloaks around there in the game).

 

Edit: word correction;

Edit2: better go to the WnC page here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27563/

 

 

Alkira.

[oqhansoloqo]

I examined the 3 mod's pages (as well as Frostfall's) for at least an hour, if not a few, to figure out what the different patches and mod configs would do in order to make sure I selected the appropriate compatibility options. I also looked at the Survival Pack instructions, which give the 2 options you mentioned. After reviewing everything, I felt that it made sense to install the full WiC file and the patch in order to make sure that I would be able to not just craft the cloaks (or find them on NPCs due to W&C) but buy them at venders if desired. I am led to believe that it is not WiC, due to the fact that none of the cloaks I've seen so far were furs. It's probably either an issue with W&C or CoS. I'll have to spend time experimenting with different options to figure out the best combo.

 

The idea of cloaks is kind of cool, but they aren't implemented the best way visually. In a way I'd rather not have them due to the clipping issues with armor/weapons/equipment. The main reason I installed them is because apparently they are pretty important for Frostfall to work well.

 

I installed an alternate low back bow quiver mod and animations to go with that because I hear that backpack from Frostfall clip heavily with quivers in the normal placement, which I imagine is also going to make 2-handed weapons and staves look weird when unwielded since they go on the back also. I tried to use the command console in order to generate a crossbow to see if their quivers are included in the new placement and loading animations, but apparently the item is unknown by the game. Hopefully the only reason why is because I haven't activated the mod in-game yet, but I don't really know. Does anyone here know?

[oqhansoloqo]

After playing around with the mods a little bit I realized that I don't like cloaks because they just don't work well with a lot of the other game character graphics - the clipping hurts my eyes. I also found Frostfall to work oddly. I was still testing Frostfall and trying to obtain a backpack to see how messed up that would look with back-sheathed weapons, but never got to it. I had traveled up to the bandit-overrun tower near Riverwood to test Frostfall exposure system and got a CTD in the fight with the bandits.

 

In the end, I unfortunately find a number of elements of the survival mods to be poorly implemented (probably mainly due to Skyrim's constraints - good effort by the modders though), and I won't tolerate CTDs, so I have reverted my profile back to STEP Extended. Even though the mods do have some coolness factor to them, I can see why they are not in normal STEP. I will most likely still end up implementing the Subliminal Traps mod - as it just changes some textures to be more camouflaged. I may end up implementing Realistic Needs and Diseases, but I have to focus on reviewing it a little first - I haven't really reviewed it yet. I may even install Hunterborn or Harvesting Overhaul (from Immersive Survival Pack)... but I need to review them a little first also. My goal is to get everything I want installed first, then play the actual game (lol... I've spent so much time just installing mods and testing them...), since saved games do not seem to be able to take well to reconfigured mods like new games can.

[Allsunday]

Those CTDs are not the mod problem but the user, aka you :P

 

They're not part of step because mods that change gameplay like Frostfall does are not something step aims for.

 

The backpack clipping is the only thing that really bothers me, but at the end of the day I find myself still using Frostfall.

 

[DoubleYou]

To fix clipping of cloaks, use 360 Walk and Run Plus (by yukl).

[Allsunday]

Frostfall is core for me and that makes 360 walk and run plus pretty much the same :P. Clipping issues with backpacks/two handed weapons is still there tho :(