Mod Recommendations?

[Aeralisk]

Hey everyone!

 

I am running Skyrim with Vividian, STEP, and Perkus Maximus (plus a few extra mods) and am wondering what mods would add to my experience :) After modding Skyrim for a week now I've come to realize that there are thousands of mods out there, but only a handful of useful ones :P

 

I am trying to base any mods I use towards helping STEP or following Perkus so the game play remains fluid.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated :)

[Nebulous112]

The only mod I've added so far to my 2.2.9.2 STEP Extended install is Understandable Draugrs. I think it'll be a neat addition, and it doesn't conflict with anything at all.

 

You probably already have, but I'd also recommend just browsing down the Mods forum listing, and see if any catch your eye. If they are in the main forum (not Mod Anthology), they aren't in STEP. Quite a few neat mods in there, but they may need patches or manual conflict resolution. Others, obviously, are total replacements for mods currently in STEP.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Nebulous112

[Aeralisk]

Thanks :) I'll give it a look 

[Kesta]

Depending on what kind of mods you're looking for, you should definitely have a look at the various STEP:Pack, as this is exactly what they're meant to (building an extended load order on using STEP as base).

[viper37]

Hey everyone!

 

I am running Skyrim with Vividian, STEP, and Perkus Maximus (plus a few extra mods) and am wondering what mods would add to my experience :) After modding Skyrim for a week now I've come to realize that there are thousands of mods out there, but only a handful of useful ones :P

 

I am trying to base any mods I use towards helping STEP or following Perkus so the game play remains fluid.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated :)

All the mods I use beyond STEP:

• Detailed Mine Map Markers (Steam Workshop)
  
• Immersive armors (Nexus)
  
• Immersive weapons
  
• aMidianBorn Textures For Immersive Armors and Lore-Friendly Armor Pack
  
• Bandolier - Bags and Pouches
  
• Vendor Sale Delay - GONE
  
• Functional Homes
  
• Automatic Item Storage
  
• Alchemy Ingredient Storage.  (These last 3 may break immersion, as in, they add storage boxes that are linked to all your homes.  But I really like that feature, so why not? )
  
• Riverside Lodge. 
  
• Unread Books Glow
  
• Spouses Can Live Everywhere. 
  
• Amazing Follower Tweaks. 
  
• Atlas Map Markers for Skyrim Blackreach Dawnguard and Dragonborn. 
  
• SPERG - Skyrim Perk Enhancements and Rebalanced Gameplay.
  
• Unofficial SPERG Patches - Imm. armor et Unofficial SPERG Patches -Weapons. 
  
• Stormcloak Armor Revival - HD and 4K textures. 
  
• Shor's Stone-70751-1-0. 
  
• Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers. 
  
• Falskaar et Falskaar - HearthFires Patch. 
  
• The Forgotten City. 
  
• Cloaks of Skyrim. 
  
• Sounds of Skyrim - The Wilds & Compatibility Patches.
  
• HDT Physics Extensions. 
  
• Face to face conversation.
  
• FNIS Sexy Move. 
  
• My Home Is Your Home - a mod for followers. 
  
• Follower Commentary Overhaul
  
• Immersive Animations. 
  
• WSCO - Windsong Skyrim Chracter Overhaul. 
  
• Drachis Argonians Mod. 
  
• XCE - Warpaint and Dirt. 
  
• RUSTIC CLOTHING - 4K and 2K Textures. 
  
• Superior Silverware - HD Textures.
  
• ShowRaceMenu Precache Killer.  Honestly, I don't know if it's really useful, but it apparently fixed a bug in ShowRaceMenu I have not yet encountered...)
  
• UIExtensions. 
  
• The Eyes Of Beauty.
  
• Wearable Lanterns
  
• Female Facial Animation
  
• Female Animation Pack
  
• Complete Fast Travel Overhaul. 
  
• Deathbell HD - All-New Textures (2K-1K). 
  
• HDT Equipment - Craftable Weapon Sling. 
  
• Lakeview Manor Evolution. 
  
• Windstad Mine. 
  
• Dragon Claw Stands. 
  

 

Ah, and you can go to https://www.loverslab.com/ for adult mods if you like that.  It really seems the possibilities of this engine are limitless.

[elwaps]

For me it always looked like the engine was fragile as hell and the creativity of the modding scene was limitless.

 

However, as mentioned above, what should your Skyrim look like in the end?

 

Something that feels like vanilla Skyrim as it could have been with two more years of development time?

An anime with flurry stuff and LSD colors?

GTA inspired madness?

An extreme role playing version where you can and have to do everything?

A BDSM themed boobs-everywhere version?

...

[n0mad23]

I had to populate the land with people (note - I think in Tamriel this isn't limited to humans).  

 

To this end I'm using - 

 

Inconsequential NPCs

Interesting NPCs

(Less) Lively Inns and Taverns

 

and pretty much the entire Erkeil Team Populated series:

-Populated Lands Roads Paths

-Populated Prison Cells

-Populated Forts Towers Places

-Populated Cities Towns Villages

-Populated Civil War (with only the patrols turned on)

With these I've opted out of the option to use scripts to hire the mercenaries and guards.  Pretty much the entire Erkeil Team series is script free.

 

The Prince and the Pauper with Gamwich's Rustic Textures patch - makes socio-economic lines visible with those kids running around everywhere.

 

Skooma Dealers of Skyrim - which I personally have recommended calling "Immersive Skooma Overhaul and other Lore Friendly Entheogens," as there really aren't too many dealers added (3 or 4).  Prices are jacked way, way up which helps explain vanilla dialog about skooma murders and other crimes.  I really dig the visual effects some of these drugs offer, and a ride through the falling leaves outside of Riften while tripping on felldew has to be seen to be appreciated.   Skooma, in particular, is very well done - when ingested there's a horrendous visual "rush" with total disorientation that fades really quickly.  Stamina regeneration is just slightly below an ultimate stamina regeneration potion for the duration of the skooma intoxication.  Lights get bright, and if there's a bit of sunlight showing, the roads of Skyrim can look like the Yellow Brick Road for a while.  As a visual metaphor, it really works for me - really ampy with some happy golden glow replicating the narcotic descriptions and the addition might be so attractive, though the mod itself doesn't add addiction.

[elwaps]

Skooma Dealers of Skyrim indeed looks awesome, gonna add this to my installation as soon as I'm done testing the latest mods. Do you think it is compatible with JK's Skyrim Lite and ETaC as both alter towns and cities and SDoS adds merchants? Will it interfer with Realistic Room Rental Basic as it alters the innkeepers?

 

Did you already consider using Immersive Citizens AI Overhaul? Its not done for all locations but where it already works, it completely overhauls the AI and the behaviour of NPCs. You can probably stop using Lively Inns and Taverns as with IC the people love to go to taverns in the evening anyway.

[n0mad23]

The only conflict I've had with Skooma Dealers of Skyrim is with Radiant and Unique Potions Poisons and Booze, but letting Skooma Dealers load was all that was required.  RUPPB conflicts with the alcohol and skooma prices and effects.  The alcohol effect is my only complaint re: Skooma Dealers as a single ale or mead leads to double vision.  However, this is fixed with a provided patch if you're using Realistic Needs (I believe).

 

When I first tried Skooma Dealers I was using ETaC modular (pretty much everything installed) plus Solitude Reborn along with Better Docks and didn't see any problem with the single dealer the mod brings to Solitude.  There's one in Windhelm, one in Markarth, and the last in Riften - all wander between 2 spots just outside the city and in.  Only 4 skooma merchants added, plus the rare finds of little stashes (2 or 3 bottles usually) at bandit camps, and other places that "make sense."  For example, there are 2 bottles of felldew and 1 greenmote (the most powerful visual effects) in the dormitory of the Greybeards.  I can see it.  Inconsequential NPCs adds a skooma dealer in Riften as well (and two "flower girls" and two male skooma addicts) and this dealers prices adjust to Skooma Dealers if the latter has priority in LO.

 

I am using Immersive Citizens overhaul this time around, and am now kicking myself as I've just learned there's a tentative patch made for use with ETaC.  I'd given up ETaC this time around specifically to give IC Overhaul a try.  Unfortunately I've been so into this play through (my first experience with Dawnstar DLC) that I'm all ready at Level 19 and feel pretty invested.  I'm really missing the additions ETaC brings, and my villages really seem "too" small after having grown used to ETaC.

 

Immersive Citizens seems to be working well with all my population additions.  I'm really glad I went with the Less Lively version of LIAT as you are correct about more named citizens appearing in the pubs at night!

 

I'm also using Become a Bard this time around (again) and I'm really digging turning the "allow npcs to dance" option in its MCM menu, and watching spontaneous awkward attempts at Nordic dancing in those densely packed pubs now.  I've yet to see any "idiot npc" behavior even in these uber-dense scenes so I'm guessing Immersive Citizens is hugely responsible.

[Kesta]

I had to populate the land with people (note - I think in Tamriel this isn't limited to humans).  

[snip]

You might also be interested in Prostitutes Of Skyrim. Yes, the mod is safe for work. It's one of mannyGT. Basically add NPCs here and there from which you can rent "services". Screen is blacked out during the thing. You can even get a buff, or a disease if you made it in exterior.

[n0mad23]

@Kesta - lol.  I forgot, but yes, in my attempt to further the population of Skyrim I do indeed have Prostitutes of Skyrim in my LO.  Though he never has taken advantage of this, to the best of my knowledge, I suspect Gor from Interesting NPCs is very appreciative of this.  Prostitutes of Skyrim is really unobtrusive, and if your imaginings of Skyrim allows Tamriel's Oldest Profession its a mod to use.  Where they inhabit Inns, they wear the garb of Tavern Wenches which works for me in creating a populated ambiance that remains lore friendly.  I'd recommend mannyGT's mod without hesitation to the appropriate audience.

 

BTW - to those who haven't tested Lively Inns and Taverns, I suggest trying it at some point just to see animations that Betheseda incorporated but never implemented.  The heavily intoxicated are certainly worth the price of admission, and the coughing/hacking sequences really emphasize the Nordic medieval smoke ventilation problem.  I have to post a caveat though - be sure to use KnightRangersGuild's "Drunk Sinking Head Idles Fix" as it's beyond unsettling to see the glitch.  My first test of LIAT ended with me removing the mod specifically because of this bug (I mistakenly though at the time it was LIAT's fault), but after KnightRangersGuild posted the fix, I had to give it another try.  No regrets.

[Spock]

Well, I'd start with adding ENB parallax to the game. I currently use Project Parallax Remastered + Vivid Landscapes and some textures by Pfuscher. Cabal's Landscape textures (unfortunately not the solstheim ones) have parallax too. I haven't decided yet which ones I like best.

 

Verdant Grass is my favorite grass mod. Out of lazyness I use the no worldspace edit version.

 

As for ENB, Vividian is not my personal favorite, but that choice is very subjective. Lumen is my current favorite, beautiful SSAO and lighting. I haven't had an extensive look at Natural Lighting and Athmospherics 2.0, that one disables color correction though disabling some ELE features I really love.

[elwaps]

Unfortunately I have to look for an alternative to Verdant. As my current installation only got 36fps in average, Verdant would certainly kill it. I'm probably gonna try Grass on Steroids. Especially as I'm about to add tons of parallax textures in the next step.

 

The SSAO of Vividian looks awesome too, by the way. And the only major conflicts I ever had with the worldspace edition of Verdant was house mods. About half of the house mods I've tested were clipping with Verdant. If you're not gonna use house mods or quests that add more than an unobstrusive dungeon, go for the worldspace edits, I thought it looks way better.

[Spock]

Well, Verdant didn't outright kill my performance. With iMinGrassSize=90 that is. But I would expect your GPU to take a little more of a hit, especially with an ENB.

 

As for ENB SSAO, I don't know if it is an AMD driver bug but I really don't like the look of UseAmbientIndirectLighting=true. Imho SSAO is supposed to darken corners, that setting doesn't do that (at least with AMD drivers).

 

Parallax mapping should be really cheap.

 

Two more recommendations are more hud and extended UI.

Edited December 8, 2015 by Spock

[TechAngel85]

Well, Verdant didn't outright kill my performance. With iMinGrassSize=90 that is. But I would expect your GPU to take a little more of a hit, especially with an ENB.

 

As for ENB SSAO, I don't know if it is an AMD driver bug but I really don't like the look of UseAmbientIndirectLighting=true. Imho SSAO is supposed to darken corners, that setting doesn't do that (at least with AMD drivers).

 

Parallax mapping should be really cheap.

 

Two more recommendations are more hud and extended UI.

Very well could be. Boris openly admits he's not supporting AMD anymore. There is a tool available in ENBSeries now to visualize SSAO in-game. This was made for the authors so they can tweak it to perfectly match what their needs are.