Step Community Main Page

STEP Logo courtesy of ElvenArcher

Help us foster an environment that leverages your enthusiasm within a culture of good humor ... and rigorous analysis!

What STEP is about:

Texture replacements, vanilla friendly and possibly scalable in quality and performance.
Graphical mods (esp's) which also can add new stuff that doesn't interfere with the vanilla feel (lanterns near bridges, for example).
Gameplay mods that only enhance a vanilla aspect of Skyrim, bug-free and with minimal edits.
Interface mods which improve the menus/UI both in utility and graphics.
Sound mods which improve the game atmosphere.
Fix mods, like "Unofficial Skyrim Patch" or the "Shadow Striping Fix".

What STEP isn't about:

Content mods: new weapons, armors, spells, monsters, npcs, etc (aside from pure aesthetic mods which do not alter the vanilla feel, for example "Birds and Flocks").
Gameplay content mods such as new plot lines, quests, races, factions, cities, dungeons, etc.
Gameplay mods which add new game mechanincs/features, or that deeply change the vanilla gameworld/gameplay.
Texture mods which differ too much from the vanilla feel, even if they're very well done.
Music replacers.
Overhauls.

This creates a stable STEP foundation. Multiple optional "STEP packs" designed with specific themes, for example a "Hardcore pack" can easily be added to this base. A pack will be a set of mods selected to work together and with STEP to achieve a specific goal (in some cases possibly following less strict guidelines than those listed above).

STEP will remain a template, a base for a more complex modded Skyrim, or a safe and complete experience itself.

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Welcome to the STEP-Community Support Website! As of this moment, we have many relevant forums and are in the process of building out a wiki that will articulate and integrate to some degree with these. Within the site, you will find many helpful resources voluntarily provided. Many of the questions that you may have will likely have already been answered by others.

We humans are composed of personalities that fall along a continuum of positive to negative, and fortunately, the majority tend to associate with the more positive pole of this continuum. Unfortunately, there is a minority that aligns with the more negative --not necessarily pessimistic, but more truly negative. While these individuals are not necessarily "bad" people, they can nonetheless be a damper to the rest, and like a wild yeast, can have a tendency to sour an otherwise perfectly good batch of home-brewed mead. This monologue and the guidelines that follow are intended for all, but necessitated by these less "enlightened" of us.

TheCompiler and the other STEP-Community site administrators ask that you, as a registered member of this site, participate and/or contribute in a manner of good spirit and common courtesy. Adherence to this simple ethos will head off any unpleasantness before they are manifest. Let the guidelines outlined herein serve as a reference for our members, so that the community may evolve to its maximum potential.

General Points of Etiquette

Use your judgement when choosing a username. Don't start out on the wrong foot by choosing something offensive. Be polite and friendly on arrival!
Please use standard English grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. Organize your post into short paragraphs for easy reading.
The use of "Leet-Speak" and chat lingo is very unfriendly to foreign-language speakers, or those unfamiliar with these conventions. Such conventions are not in the spirit of this community, and offenders will be warned.
Please don't use [Caps Lock] or all caps for thread titles of any substantial part of a post.
Any post with the following will be immediately removed. PLEASE DO NOT ...

... post anyone else's personal information... ever.

... discuss or assist in illegal activities such as software and music piracy, warez, cracks, serials, etc. This includes linking to other websites with said material.

... re-create a deleted or locked thread for the purposes of trying to keep it going.

... post flashing or strobing images or text.

... use excessive amounts of large, colorful, or otherwise annoying text just to emphasize your words.

... reply to a thread without anything to contribute (e.g., "First", "Second", etc.).

S.T.E.P. Community Citizenship Guide

A guide detailing our philosophy and recommended best practices for contributing to the community. Thanks for reading and welcome to the STEP Community.

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These guides are useful to every Skyrim user and form a firm foundation of knowledge. We are endeavoring to remove the unnecessary duplication and conflicting advice from these guides. Please post any helpful comments on these guides by clicking the Guide forum thread linked near the top of each page. The guides are best read in the order listed, although they are not dependent on each other, each requires an increasing amount of general knowledge to get the most out of it.

Skyrim Installation

A fairly detailed and comprehensive installation and configuration guide to Skyrim and its dlcs, mods, extensions, and utilities. It is written as an overview and introduction and includes general information providing context to the guides recommendations. It is not a step by step walkthrough, links will be provided to such supplemental material if and when it is written. Graphics and video may follow as required.

Wrye Bash

A practical, hands-on introduction to Wrye Bash using STEP as a working example. Anxious to install STEP? Wish you knew how to use Wrye Bash as a mod organizer? Learn Wrye Bash while you accomplish the task you would otherwise find yourself doing anyway!

Troubleshooting

Brand spanking new, just covers a few items at the moment.

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Additional guides useful for smaller subsets of users or for those that are ready to move on to more advanced topics after having mastered the core series.

Mod Organizer

A Guide to using Mod Organizer to manage your STEP installation.

ATI Catalyst Control Center (CCC)

A WIP pictorial guide to 3D Application Settings in Catalyst Control Center.

DDSopt & Texture Overhauls

A simplified guide to using DDSopt to improve texture quality & performance, including an assessment of all of the big Skyrim texture overhauls.

Hardware

This is a in depth hardware upgrade guide to help you decide what will give you the greatest performance boost per dollar.