STEP:State of STEP/2016-04-15

Welcome to the first State of STEP article! This article will be released every month or two to help us (STEP) keep in touch with our user base and the community as a whole.

STEP is growing! Over the years we've been on a steady increase in both members and regular users. Since April of 2015 we have had over 2,300 new registered users sign up on the forums with an average of 178 users per month! During this time we averaged 207 new topics per month. What are the most popular forums? Ranking from most popular at the top to least, here are the top ten forums:

Skyrim Revisited (Skyrim)
Mods
Mod Organizer Support
General (support)
Mod Organizer - Fallout Support
Banter Inn
SR - Support
Fear & Loathing in New Vegas (Fallout NV)
ENB Support
H - Characters & Creatures

STEP will be getting some updates soon. Currently in the works is a wiki update. We've been testing out the wiki software update on our development platform and it is close to being ready for release. With this several changes are coming. For one, the CSS extension will be gone. This will help us to promote a consistent look and feel across all the wiki pages. Getting the wiki software updated will help use get closer to full Pack integration.

Following the wiki update will come a forum software update. There shouldn't be any changes noticed with the forum update, however, the forums will be down during this period. We will send out a maintenance notification email and post about the downtime on Facebook and Nexus before performing it so users will be made aware. Both this and the wiki update will be completed by Stoppingby4now whenever he finds the time to do so. He's a busy guy!

Finally, what you're all waiting for...the next release of STEP. Unfortunately, the next release will still be a ways off. The next release isn't being worked on much, but there are a few changes which have already been accepted including dropping a few mods and adding a few more. Most of the mods in testing are currently being tested during the staff's playthroughs. As always, current development is visible to the public by visiting the Dev topic for the next release, found the in the "Current Release Development" forum. |SoSstaff=Who are these mythical creatures running this project? Gods? Angels? No, we're just human. Here's what we've been up to since the last release of STEP.

Z929669 (Z): Is still playing Dragon's Age while recently waging war with influenza.

Stoppingby4now (s4n): Has been stuck in traffic for two months or is fighting off the zombie apocalypse. We're not sure which, but we wish him the best of luck.

TechAngel85 (Tech): Tech has been hard at work on his own projects. First is the Relighting Skyrim - Remastered project that is headed by JawZ. Tech is on the team and is helping to remaster Relighting Skyrim from scratch. Second, are his own mods: Jaggarsfeld Extended and Dragonborn Sanctuary. Jaggarsfeld Extended is a player home that Tech took upon himself to fix long standing issues with. He recently updated the mod to include beds for followers and a garden for planting. Dragonborn Sanctuary is a player home mod which hasn't been published yet and is still in the very early stages of being constructed. This one is Tech's very own creations pulling inspiration from his two favorite homes: Dragon Cliff Manor and Jaggarsfeld. Tech has also recently started a new playthrough of Skyrim as a Bosmer Ranger.

EssArrBee (SRB): Is tired of grading papers so he's just been passing or failing kids at random. Best of luck to those kids.

DoubleYou (DY): While not on the forums DoubleYou has been getting his game on with another Skyrim playthrough and playing Fallout. The rest of his time is filled by geeking out over INIs. :)

GrantSP (Grant): Has found enlightenment. He returns from time to time to teach us his wisdom.

|SoScomNews=====String Count Issue==== A new limitation in modding has been discovered. It's always been known that too many script-heavy mods installed in one game is a bad thing, but just recently the reason for this has been discovered. It seems the .ESS file format the saves use has a string count limitation of 65,535, due to the table being saved as 16-bit. It's also been discovered the table can be saved using 32-bit and, although save game tools will load the save, the game will not. This is yet another limitation that has been found within the aging game engine.

As of the time of this release, there hasn't been a fix for this issue created by the community. Therefore, users need to be aware of the string count of their saves. This can be done by using the TESV ESS Files Editor tool and looking in the global data table 3, in the papyrus subsection. The vanilla game with all DLCs and USLEEP installed will have ~28,000 strings. Add a full installation of STEP on top and the strings will sit around ~32,000. So STEP users do not have to worry too much about this limitation unless they are adding a lot of script-heavy mods that aren't included in STEP. Some mod authors will be able to prevent their mods from storing strings with the correct scripting skills, but many will not, due to design. The best advice currently is to be aware of the issue and to limit the amount of scripted mods users install.

There is a very good article with links to more information here.

Nexus

Nexus recently confirmed during their security breach last year that usernames and passwords were stolen from their servers. Though the passwords were encrypted, the staff over at Nexus are highly recommending users to change their passwords. Depending on the complexity of your password, they may or may not be easy to crack. STEP also urges users to update their passwords on Nexus, if they haven't done so already. When creating a new password, be sure to make it complex enough that it would be difficult to near impossible to crack. We recommend making passwords at least 8 characters with at least one letter, one number, and one special character. Don't make it as obvious as substituting letters for obvious characters either. For example, ElderScrolls becomes 3lder5cr0lls. These types of passwords are easier to crack than one would think. Using a random string of letters, numbers, and special characters will be much more secure.

ENBSeries

Boris has recently halted production for the Fallout 4 ENBSeries. This is mainly until Bethesda releases some updates and stops changing how some effects are processed. Meanwhile, ENBSeries for Skyrim is now up to v0.305 with some new and powerful features like per-location weathers. There are only a few ENB Presets taking advantage of this feature, but expect more and greater things from Preset authors in the future as the new features gain popularity. To this date, one of the most popular ENBs is Vividian ENB. STEP, particularly, recommends the Vanilla version to keep a close-to-vanilla atmosphere.

Skywind

For those of you who have never heard the name, "Skywind", it is an ambitious total-conversion project to re-create the world of Morrowind on the Skyrim engine. The project has been around for several years, but is finally getting to an exciting stage in development. Before, they kept to their own little corner in the modding community with a few dedicated developers working on it. This is mainly because Bethesda refused to condone the use of one game's assets being used in another one of their games (cross title assets). This didn't phase the developers, though! They jumped into action creating all the game assets from Morrowind from scratch! That takes dedication! Now, the project is to a stage where it's being seen as a truly incredible feat. Nearly all the exterior space assets have been developed, but there is still a lot of work to do until it's complete. Nexus has finally decided they're comfortable backing the project, as is STEP. They're hoping for more support from modders, voice actors, concert art designers, modellers, texture artists, sound designers, and more. If you have some talent in any of these fields and can dedicate some of your free time to helping the Skywind project, we encourage you to visit their website to learn more and help this project come to completion!

GamerPoets

If you haven't heard the name yet, you have now. GamerPoets is a YouTube channel which partially got started on STEP by making videos for us and some other modders. Over time they have grown into a team and are known for their tutorial videos for modding. They have created a unique format for their videos that is new, refreshing, informative, to the point, and dare I say...professional. With a good "radio voice", you'll be focused and you won't loose attention while following along. We link to several of GamerPoets videos throughout our various Guides, and if you want to learn more about modding, we recommend subscribing to this channel! |SoSmodHighlights=====Vivid Weathers====