Skyrim Modding Guide

[Sacremas]

Actually you can get an SKSE log as well if you have some bad plugins running at once, for example some versions of HDT physics make a log, the Fuz Roh Doh mod makes a log, and if you have something that's just really messing up SKSE then you can easily get an actual SKSE error log. Which you really really shouldn't, because that's a sign of something going critically bad in your game.

 

You have a lot of crap in your plugin list, you shouldn't have that many different ones. For one make sure you remove Safety Load and any other mod you have that is meant to prevent CTDs, especially CTDs during RaceMenu, the SKSE.ini settings you put in makes all of those REDUNDANT and if you keep them in you will run into problems even. Look through your plugins and find out if you are actually using all of these, it's your PLUGINS that are doing the logging and causing your game to slow down, this is not something that can be or even should be toggled off in any kind of ini file, if you don't like their logging then it means you don't have the system to run them so GET RID OF THEM. Only use what you absolutely need. SKSE plugins can easily slow you down more than five actual mods filled with scripts, because they affect the main scripting system that all the other mods need to work and they are active all the time, a mod like HDT for example has a much bigger impact on your system than a mod like Sexlab Arousal, because it's active all the time and being used as suddenly the main physics engine for a lot of things, so it's constantly being called up... but this goes for all plugins, they are generally active all the time in your save, there's no downtime like with scripts, so they can eat up a lot of your resources. Figure out which ones of these you actually need, dump the rest.

[Mimirue17]

ok I have just gotten the game to look a bit nicer and installed a really basic enb that focuses on Tamriel Reloaded HD.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49834/?

 

(note not sure how to make links that take you directly there so if any help there that would be awesome)

 

here is how my game looks with just the mods listed there along with JK Skyrim and I used Pure Waters.   Lighting choice was ELFX

 

 

 

 

 

 

this one might work for you as well Fish as its really basic but uses TR HD, SMIM and ELFX

[iggypop1]

Actually you can get an SKSE log as well if you have some bad plugins running at once, for example some versions of HDT physics make a log, the Fuz Roh Doh mod makes a log, and if you have something that's just really messing up SKSE then you can easily get an actual SKSE error log. Which you really really shouldn't, because that's a sign of something going critically bad in your game.

 

You have a lot of crap in your plugin list, you shouldn't have that many different ones. For one make sure you remove Safety Load and any other mod you have that is meant to prevent CTDs, especially CTDs during RaceMenu, the SKSE.ini settings you put in makes all of those REDUNDANT and if you keep them in you will run into problems even. Look through your plugins and find out if you are actually using all of these, it's your PLUGINS that are doing the logging and causing your game to slow down, this is not something that can be or even should be toggled off in any kind of ini file, if you don't like their logging then it means you don't have the system to run them so GET RID OF THEM. Only use what you absolutely need. SKSE plugins can easily slow you down more than five actual mods filled with scripts, because they affect the main scripting system that all the other mods need to work and they are active all the time, a mod like HDT for example has a much bigger impact on your system than a mod like Sexlab Arousal, because it's active all the time and being used as suddenly the main physics engine for a lot of things, so it's constantly being called up... but this goes for all plugins, they are generally active all the time in your save, there's no downtime like with scripts, so they can eat up a lot of your resources. Figure out which ones of these you actually need, dump the rest.

 Hi Sacremas first thanks for your help

 

Ok you say the papyrus log in the perfect conditions should all ways be enabled? my log Papyrus 0Papyrus.0.log.7z

 

Ok  got rid of Safety load+Preache Killer +Estrus Chaurus

 

Got rid of the obvious not used hdt files

 

Im using Minous HDT xml pack and just installed all and it works (collision) but i know there is some unnessery  Hdt files in there ,i just dont know which ones, i dont know what they do other than i need the "hdtPhyscsExtensionsDefaultBBP.xlm" one my HDT with Mempatch and extensions also extra fake jiggly optional xml.7z Is there a way you can spot the unused ones?

 

This how it looks right nowPlugins.7z

 

Thanks for your patience

 

Iggy

 

[iggypop1]

 

 

Ah, that's not SKSE that does, that's your Skyrim.ini file. If you are using Nexus Mod Manager or the like still then you will find the file in My Documents/My Games/Skyrim, once you change to MO it'll be a part of the MO interface. Scroll down to bEnableLogging and bEnableTrace and turn them both off.

 

Unless you mean an SKSE log? That you shouldn't get, can you list what files you have in your Skyrim/Data/SKSE/Plugins folder?

oh ok its in skyrim ini i turn the log off ......

Plugins.7z Here is my plugins messy as hell, some leftovers from pussy tryout and what not....

 

 

"Unless you mean an SKSE log? That you shouldn't get"..........why not?

 

 

Thank you

 

 

No, he is not talking about plugins, he is talking about skyrim.ini in mydocuments\my games\skyrim

 

Here is logging turned on

 

[Papyrus]

fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0

bEnableLogging=1

bEnableTrace=1

bLoadDebugInformation=1

iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=153600

 

Here is logging turned off

[Papyrus]

fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0

bEnableLogging=0

bEnableTrace=0

bLoadDebugInformation=0

iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=153600

 

Other settings are system dependant.

 

 

Thanks for all the help (i really dont understand much of this)

 

I copy pastet this into my SKSE  ini so now it look like thisSKSE.zip so now i have the opportunity to turn it off  by changing 1 to  0  yes?

 

Thank you

 

Iggy

 

 

[Sacremas]

NO! Goddamit, you're not supposed to put the Papyrus bits in the SKSE ini! What you had before is ALL that should be in that! The Papyrus bits can be found in your SKYRIM.INI! We've said this several times, it shouldn't be that hard!

 

And no I can't help you with your plugins because I don't know your mod setup and I don't know your skeleton or body shape or what physics you use and I'd rather not go through all of that if you're going to swap to MO later anyway. I'll help you when that time comes instead. I can tell you that you'll be best off uninstalling Skyrim, deleting the skyrim folder (program files/steam/steamapps/common/skyrim), and then reinstalling everything through mod organizer or you might as well stick with basic NMM because you're going to get exactly the same effect out of it! You need to install ALL mods through Mod Organizer, or it will have no effect at all.

 

 

ok I have just gotten the game to look a bit nicer and installed a really basic enb that focuses on Tamriel Reloaded HD.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49834/?

 

(note not sure how to make links that take you directly there so if any help there that would be awesome)

 

here is how my game looks with just the mods listed there along with JK Skyrim and I used Pure Waters.   Lighting choice was ELFX

 

 

 

ScreenShot2.jpgScreenShot3.jpgScreenShot4.jpgScreenShot5.jpgScreenShot6.jpgScreenShot7.jpgScreenShot8.jpg

 

 

 

this one might work for you as well Fish as its really basic but uses TR HD, SMIM and ELFX

 

Consdering I was unable to run that ENB without a LOT of stuttering I wouldn't call it basic, but if it works for you that's great.

 

To make hyperlinked text just do it like this , your description text inbetween (this is what turns blue) ended with another[ /url] with the spaces removed.

[fishburger67]

I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I solved my enb problem.  I screwed with the enb settings till I was blue in the face.  Nothing worked.  Everything too dark.  My poor monitor had a loud 60 Hz hum.  I was in Bannered Mare and pressed Shift f12 to turn the thing off and everything was bright, but the enb was still working (non-vanilla colors).  So, I checked my display settings and found that the enb install had set my brightness to nearly zero.

 

I set it to about the middle and pressed Shift F12 again and volla.  Everything was gorgeous.  I am a happy camper with what I have now running > 60fpt everywhere.  I am thinking of dumping the performance version and use the full one just to see what it looks like and what the performance it.

[Sacremas]

Great that it worked out for you! Yeah some ENBs can actually do that, they set Brightenss down to nothing and then falsely increase the brightness in other ways for a different look, then when you install another ENB ontop of it that doesn't use that setting you get a too dark look without the falsely increased brightness. It's always a good idea to reinstall ALL of your ENB files upon switching ENBs.

[iggypop1]

NO! Goddamit, you're not supposed to put the Papyrus bits in the SKSE ini! What you had before is ALL that should be in that! The Papyrus bits can be found in your SKYRIM.INI! We've said this several times, it shouldn't be that hard!

 

And no I can't help you with your plugins because I don't know your mod setup and I don't know your skeleton or body shape or what physics you use and I'd rather not go through all of that if you're going to swap to MO later anyway. I'll help you when that time comes instead. I can tell you that you'll be best off uninstalling Skyrim, deleting the skyrim folder (program files/steam/steamapps/common/skyrim), and then reinstalling everything through mod organizer or you might as well stick with basic NMM because you're going to get exactly the same effect out of it! You need to install ALL mods through Mod Organizer, or it will have no effect at all.

 

 

ok I have just gotten the game to look a bit nicer and installed a really basic enb that focuses on Tamriel Reloaded HD.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49834/?

 

(note not sure how to make links that take you directly there so if any help there that would be awesome)

 

here is how my game looks with just the mods listed there along with JK Skyrim and I used Pure Waters.   Lighting choice was ELFX

 

 

 

ScreenShot2.jpgScreenShot3.jpgScreenShot4.jpgScreenShot5.jpgScreenShot6.jpgScreenShot7.jpgScreenShot8.jpg

 

 

 

this one might work for you as well Fish as its really basic but uses TR HD, SMIM and ELFX

 

Consdering I was unable to run that ENB without a LOT of stuttering I wouldn't call it basic, but if it works for you that's great.

 

To make hyperlinked text just do it like this , your description text inbetween (this is what turns blue) ended with another[ /url] with the spaces removed.

Ok got it

 

To MO it is

 

Thanx for the  help

[Mimirue17]

iggy, MO is really cool.   But take it from someone who just switched over, WATCH THE VIDEOS>>>ALL OF THEM.   I have currently gone from 179 mods in NMM to 79 (merged) mods and have had to delete and reinstall twice.   Its been about a week now and am just now getting to where I can install sexlab files again, since they are the most likely things to blow an install up with all the animations.   Go slow, and install your normal mods one at at time, log into skyrim make sure they work and add another, rinse and repeat until you feel comfortable.   Once you get the hang of it I think you will be very happy with the switch.   I asked and will continue to ask lots of questions, hehe so good luck!  

 

I might switch to another enb at some point but was just trying something that didn't have a crap load of mods they want you to install like realvision.   My system is pretty good so can probably run the big ones with all the mods just trying to keep my overall install as simple as possible till I figure MO out.

[fishburger67]

I have my new enb running pretty well now and things look pretty gorgeous.  But I have a 60 cycle hum coming from my monitor, even on a new game in the dungeon, or outside.  Diminishes in volume at night, but still there..  Goes away if I bring up the game menu.  Anyone have a clue what this might be?

[Sacremas]

No idea I'm afraid, my monitor is my living room TV hooked up to my computer with me sitting six feet away with a wireless keyboard and mouse, so it's been quite a while since I dealt with monitors.

 

DId you try upgrading textures to Tamriel Reloaded HD? They actually run faster than the Unofficial High Res Textures pack, so if you're using that and a 0.265 ENB or newer then you might as well switch.

[Sacremas]

Okay on the subject of quest mods I've decided that what I'm going to do instead of just listing all that I've heard good things about and that you should check out, I'm going to actually play through these mods and see for myself that they are good, all the while monitoring things like papyrus and bugs that might cause problems for you, if they aren't causing problems in my very heavy mod set up then they won't cause problems for anyone with a well-modded game.

 

First off one I just finished, and it's one of the same mods I mentioned previously! The Immersive College of Winterhold in addition to all the other actually immersive stuff it does to expand the college now includes a full quest as well. This is only available once you've finished the College questline as well as Dragon Rising in the main quest. It takes you DEEEP underground to the ruins of winterhold to discover what caused the Great Collapse, and to stop the ancient evils that are awakening down there. It's got some truly epic locations, and some very hard fights in comparison to most quest mods, but at that stage in you career you'll be going through it you should be well prepared. You get a lot of nice loot, including some artifacts based on ones that showed up in previous games, perfectly balanced at that, and there's a lot of new enemies in the mod, including Morlock style trolls, drakes, hyenas and a lot of very cool undead, simplest of which is an animated version of the enshrouded draugr that you see on tables in dungeons crawling at you like dusty worms, and most complex of which is a giant/dragon hybrid skeleton that assembles infront of your eyes. The quest is just another reason to install an already awesome mod.

 

Also a non quest mod while at it, an add on to the Animated Dragon Wings mod; Animated Feathered Wings is a mesh/texture replacer for the dragon wings to make incredibly beauitiful angel wings, perfect for paladins, as well as red glowing wings for that fallen angel or succubus. You can also see the mod in uglykidcid's Angelic Temptress for UNPB mod here on Lover's Lab, and as an Angelic Temptress you can through an MCM menu choose between any of over a dozen wings now. Here's a couple of pictures of my character's new wings;

 

http://cloud-2.steamusercontent.com/ugc/538515973768138180/5EE10E84811D560CE32FB0F1CF112666F1401EDF/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/538515973768098752/6A7721F1F90ED65C18E37F9C6DA33F6ED2171FF8/

[fishburger67]

No idea I'm afraid, my monitor is my living room TV hooked up to my computer with me sitting six feet away with a wireless keyboard and mouse, so it's been quite a while since I dealt with monitors.

 

DId you try upgrading textures to Tamriel Reloaded HD? They actually run faster than the Unofficial High Res Textures pack, so if you're using that and a 0.265 ENB or newer then you might as well switch.

 

Yes, have the TR HD and it is amazing.

[iggypop1]

iggy, MO is really cool.   But take it from someone who just switched over, WATCH THE VIDEOS>>>ALL OF THEM.   I have currently gone from 179 mods in NMM to 79 (merged) mods and have had to delete and reinstall twice.   Its been about a week now and am just now getting to where I can install sexlab files again, since they are the most likely things to blow an install up with all the animations.   Go slow, and install your normal mods one at at time, log into skyrim make sure they work and add another, rinse and repeat until you feel comfortable.   Once you get the hang of it I think you will be very happy with the switch.   I asked and will continue to ask lots of questions, hehe so good luck!  

 

I might switch to another enb at some point but was just trying something that didn't have a crap load of mods they want you to install like realvision.   My system is pretty good so can probably run the big ones with all the mods just trying to keep my overall install as simple as possible till I figure MO out.

 

Thanks very kind

 

[Sacremas]

 

No idea I'm afraid, my monitor is my living room TV hooked up to my computer with me sitting six feet away with a wireless keyboard and mouse, so it's been quite a while since I dealt with monitors.

 

DId you try upgrading textures to Tamriel Reloaded HD? They actually run faster than the Unofficial High Res Textures pack, so if you're using that and a 0.265 ENB or newer then you might as well switch.

 

Yes, have the TR HD and it is amazing.

 

 

I no rite! Seen Mia's dungeon? Who am I kidding, you went there first. The tile textures just pop out at you, it just seems so much more real and yes immersive. I'm really glad I found that mod and got it working properly. And the game runs faster and better with it, what the hell?! This is one mod that's not ever leaving my load order.

[fishburger67]

 

 

 

 

No idea I'm afraid, my monitor is my living room TV hooked up to my computer with me sitting six feet away with a wireless keyboard and mouse, so it's been quite a while since I dealt with monitors.

 

DId you try upgrading textures to Tamriel Reloaded HD? They actually run faster than the Unofficial High Res Textures pack, so if you're using that and a 0.265 ENB or newer then you might as well switch.

 

Yes, have the TR HD and it is amazing.

 

 

 

I no rite! Seen Mia's dungeon? Who am I kidding, you went there first. The tile textures just pop out at you, it just seems so much more real and yes immersive. I'm really glad I found that mod and got it working properly. And the game runs faster and better with it, what the hell?! This is one mod that's not ever leaving my load order.

 

 

Yes, I went there first, but didn't see a huge difference.  I am likely missing another texture mod.  But, the rest of skyrim is amazing.  There is a couple of recommended parallax mods that are recommended for the enb that I don't have installed and I think I remember you saying that that was one of the things that really made it pop out.  This enb does support parallax and uses .266, so I am guessing I just need the right textures.  However, I am quite content with how it is now.  Just need to add some light over the pool.

 

 

[Sacremas]

Ooooh, you haven't enabled Parallax yet? Northern Lights should work fine with parallax with TRHD;

 

Enter your ENBLocal.ini, scroll down to the bottom, you should have these lines like this;

FixParallaxBugs=true
FixParallaxTerrain=true
FixAliasedTextures=true

 

Once you have that, reload and go back into the dungeon again and wander around a bit and look at the walls. Also go look up a cave, or the outside (facing throat of the world ascent) of High Hrothgar. TRHD full is all the parallax that you're going to need, I'm not using any other mod with it currently other than things that fixes other things entirely (water, fire effects, smoke and embers, and otherwise creature and armor textures).

[fishburger67]

Ooooh, you haven't enabled Parallax yet? Northern Lights should work fine with parallax with TRHD;

 

Enter your ENBLocal.ini, scroll down to the bottom, you should have these lines like this;

FixParallaxBugs=true

FixParallaxTerrain=true

FixAliasedTextures=true

 

Once you have that, reload and go back into the dungeon again and wander around a bit and look at the walls. Also go look up a cave, or the outside (facing throat of the world ascent) of High Hrothgar. TRHD full is all the parallax that you're going to need, I'm not using any other mod with it currently other than things that fixes other things entirely (water, fire effects, smoke and embers, and otherwise creature and armor textures).

 

Many thanks, I'll give it a go tonight.

[Sacremas]

Also consider adding a few of the other general enhancement mods I posted even if you're not going to add things like quest mods and big changes, JK*s SKyrim uses all vanilla assets so all of those assets get filled with TRHD textures instead, and it looks gorgeous, and a lot of the changes just plain makes sense, like Alvor in Riverwod having a smelter and having an enclosement around the dangerous parts of his smithy to keep the kids running around from getting hurt, and a small dock, and Winterhold having more ruins an actual wall around them, Morthal has a wall and  a functional gate, even Ivarstead gets guard towers that would be obvious to have, and Solitude just feels much more active and immersive with it. You should really test it out and then just run around and see if it was worth it or not, it's perfectly safe to uninstall as well. If you're ever going to do a Mage walkthrough the CWI is awesome. And Interesting NPCs and in particular Inconsequential NPCs (ironically) just breathes so much more life into the game. The other mods I posted was mainly flavour and convenience mods, but these are nearly essential once you've tried them.

[Mimirue17]

Also consider adding a few of the other general enhancement mods I posted even if you're not going to add things like quest mods and big changes, JK*s SKyrim uses all vanilla assets so all of those assets get filled with TRHD textures instead, and it looks gorgeous, and a lot of the changes just plain makes sense, like Alvor in Riverwod having a smelter and having an enclosement around the dangerous parts of his smithy to keep the kids running around from getting hurt, and a small dock, and Winterhold having more ruins an actual wall around them, Morthal has a wall and  a functional gate, even Ivarstead gets guard towers that would be obvious to have, and Solitude just feels much more active and immersive with it. You should really test it out and then just run around and see if it was worth it or not, it's perfectly safe to uninstall as well. If you're ever going to do a Mage walkthrough the CWI is awesome. And Interesting NPCs and in particular Inconsequential NPCs (ironically) just breathes so much more life into the game. The other mods I posted was mainly flavour and convenience mods, but these are nearly essential once you've tried them.

have you ever tried immersive wenches and deadly wenches together?  The first part is meh, having more cute serving girls is nice I guess and the follow a daily schedule which does make them immersive.   The second part however, adds an element that has been missing, leveled leaders in the bandit, vampire, forsworn etc.   Not only that they replace alot of the town guards and just make the game nicer too look at and adds a difficulty level that I find refreshing.   Just curious if you ever tried it or not, I wont play without it now, though even the Bleak falls Barrow can be quite a challenge at level 1-3 now fighting boss type mobs

[fishburger67]

Ooooh, you haven't enabled Parallax yet? Northern Lights should work fine with parallax with TRHD;

 

Enter your ENBLocal.ini, scroll down to the bottom, you should have these lines like this;

FixParallaxBugs=true

FixParallaxTerrain=true

FixAliasedTextures=true

 

Once you have that, reload and go back into the dungeon again and wander around a bit and look at the walls. Also go look up a cave, or the outside (facing throat of the world ascent) of High Hrothgar. TRHD full is all the parallax that you're going to need, I'm not using any other mod with it currently other than things that fixes other things entirely (water, fire effects, smoke and embers, and otherwise creature and armor textures).

 

Didn't change anything in the palace.  The two top settings were already made and the third had this comment:

 

//[KYO : Below kills noise in textures details, so false]

 

I set it to true anyway, but it didn't do anything.  Gotta be missing a texture or something.

 

But, as I say, it doesn't really matter.  The dungeon (and other places like it) are beautiful.  You can see moss on the walls that wasn't there and the stones just pop out at you.  The towns are simply gorgeous.  This enb also makes the skin textures very realistic and I am loving it.

[Skippe]

i bookmarked this and im glad i was directed here unofficial patches, sky ui, mcm, convinient horses,better werewolfs ,better vampires, deadly dragon overhauls.i use all of them every time. immersive weapons and armors are also tought i dont always use both of them i use re modelled armors and weapon and armor fixes. re modelled armors i dont activate everytime. aft and fco are always in load order krmh with  shared serana  and serana dialogue.rest of mods are something i have found usefull or adds something to game

 

balanced magic, apocalypse spell package, more killmoves, brawlbug fix,immersive creatures, immersive and deadly wenches. these are mods that i usually keep also my all playtroughs.

 

now everyone knows what mods come next right sexlab framework and non sexlab animations, fnis sexy move,defeat and submit, aproach, aroused and atraction. working girl i kinda like too.succubus heart and deadly drain are something i want to test sometime. sexymaids of skyrim , amorous adventures and mias lair are quest mods i use regulary now also my playtroughs with sexlab solutions. among these mods i consider leave defeat and keep only submit, aproach i use sometimes.

 

so what are your toughts does these work together fine or should i do changes ? i am not modder or never maded one so im pretty unexperienced with this but i enjoy mods in my playtroughts and have played now 1200 h steam well in 2 years that is before that probably 400 h at xbox.  

 

[Sacremas]

You shouldn't use Defeat and Submit at the same time, or at least if you do then don't activate auto-submit, as that can easily cause save game corruption if you have mutltiple defeats or enslavements active. Other than that your load looks fine, just be aware that Approach consumes a lot of resources, so don't use it all the time, just turn it on when you're looking for some fun.

 

Personally I use Submit for the option to manually submit as well as the dialogue options and to make NPCs submit. For my next playthrough I'm also adding Death Alternative, Prison Overhaul and Sanguine's Debauchery and Devious Devices related mods. Otherwise I'm using often Cumshot (both with female to futa characters and male characters), College Days Winterhold (the teachers tend to start out on top unfortunately in animations, which means you're going to get your butt plundered by a strapon as a male, but you can reverse positions with hotkeys), I'm using Nusbie's Voices (really sexy), 3dm forum sperm replacer (awesome bukkakke potential), Amorous of course (leaving it out my next playthrough), Sex Slaves and ZAZ. Recently I've also been playing with werewolf and giant sex so I added More Nasty Critters, Creature Features and Untamed (currently pregnant with a giant) as well as latest Sexlab Werewolves which allows me to make even my femme lycana werewolf with custom skin via Werewolf Essentials a futa. I'm also using Random Attack, but that can crash the game potentially if you have too many scenes going on, but since it's so highly configurable I can just activate it when I want to add some random sex to my game and leave it off otherwise. I'm also using Hentai Pregnancy and Radiant Prostitution on my next playthrough. All in all that pretty much covers everything that I want to do.

 

Thanks for the heads up on Deadly Wenches, looks like a very cool mod, I'll add it to my playhtrough and if it's as good as it promises and no errors I'll add it to the general world enhancement suggestions. I'm not into Immersive Wenches however, I don't have the ESP space to spare for adding serving girls to my game when there's already several in the game like Saadia and Olfina.

[Sacremas]

sStill exploring the wonderful world of Wenches, and already found one to make my mark on!

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/538516228518191150/F8DF26443D8CEE1CCB21F8EDC90060AA49507B3A/

 

 

Meanwhile however here's a return to the Loot section, namely to fix those damn Dragon Priest Masks!

 

First off the Enchantment on the mask jsut isn't particularily good for late gameplay, and a lot of mods like Revenge of the Enemies make them only attainable at that point. Dragon Priest Masks Redefined fixes that and makes them actually useful for the whole game.

 

Now let's say you don't want that mask to cover up your character's good looks. There's two real options for this; SkyHIde, Don't Show Helmets can make all helmets (and more, both your own and your enemies) invisible in game. However it's got a HUGE amount of ESPs to enable of you want to hide it all, too much for my tastes. Otherwise you can try Open Dragon Priest Masks by calyps (same modder that made that strap on and sex toys yep!), this is a very nice mod that gives you multiple options for wearing the masks. Personally I prefer the Vartiant 1 version. HOWEVER, two important caveats; the above mod that changes their abilities doesn't work with this version, and a lot more important for me, this mod is incompatible with SOS as the masks uses SOS's slot. This might not mean anything if you're playing female but if you're male or futa this will make this mod useless.

 

The alternative is not to wear the mask at all, but to have it hanging off your belt instead! The Warmonger Armory in addition to some really cool armors and weapons (especially if you're playing a Nord) also includes the ability to take the Dragon Priest masks and using some leather strips hang it off your belt instead!

 

Now let's improve the look on the mask; Apophyus Dragon Priest Masks is a scary good new retexture of the masks, they look AMAZING, wether you want them hanging on your wall, off your belt on on your face, or fight the enemies wearing them. There's patches as well for both Warmonger Armory and Open Dragon Priest Masks, and all of it is ALL TEXTURES so it's no ESP to add on. Also if you plan on putting your masks on their pedestals in the Immersive College of Winterhold's trophy room, that mod now includes a patch for these textures!

[Sacremas]

I can safely give my recommendation towards Immersive/Deadly Wenches, and I highly recommend a mod to remove their helmets like the SkyHide inviisble headgears mod I linked above for your wenches to show of their pretty hairstyles. I also recommend you use TERA armors with it and have them wear it, fighting bandits will never be the same again.

 

 

Okay, so you have a lot of loot, and you're feeling good, but things are starting to not be as challenging anymore as it used to. You're just getting a bit too good at this game, and enemies are dying like flies. This post will be about how to make the world challenging again.

 

First off Deadly Dragons/Deadly Monsters should already be a part of your load order, and with Deadly Monsters in particular as well as in conjucntion with SkyTweak you should be able to adjust things fairly well. But let's go the extra step.

 

Revenge of the Enemies is a wonderful mod to give certain enemies in the game like special creatures and bosses special attacks and unique powers, fighting vampires and dragon priests are just completely different with this mod active. The above linked version is a no-script version of RotE, meaning it's not going to stress your game much and it's got a lot less chance of failing if you have a lot of scripts like combat scripts, Aroused, Perkus Maximus and so on firing in the background.

 

To install this you need to both enable it, and if you have a NPC overhaul you need to manually edit a TES5Merged patch like I descriped on the first page of this thread to make sure everyone gets their packages. You want to go into boss characters like the end bosses of the Civil War, Thieves Guild,  Dark Brotherhood and Daedric quests and make sure their AI packages and new abiltiies follow over. For characters who's apperance you don't care about like dragon priests and generic vampires make sure Rebirth Monster.esp is the last mod that affects those type of creatures. If you're going to install Skyrim Immersive Creatures (which I highly recommend) be aware that mod has a Revenge of the Enemies patch included which you should use, it gives the RotE AI and abilites to a lot of those new creatures.

 

Be careful when installing things like Shout mods when using these type of enhancemnets, a lot of the Revenge and SIC creatures get shouts just like you do, so if you have a mod that makes Unrelenting Force do 500 damage, then your draugr are going to use that on you as well, which is only fair. Just another incentive to get as balanced a game as possible.

 

You might also want High Level Enemies, this includes a lot of new next tier creatures like high level draugr that makes deathlords seem like mooks, forsworn warlords, and elite bandits. Unlike Revenge where the enemies are in the game to begin with (so don't even think about going after a dragon priest until you're level 20+), High Level Enemies only show up once you're high level and ready for them. Be careful about unleveled worlds when using mods like this, or there's going to be some impossibly powerful enemies out there that can mess up your life if you get into their zone. For load order you want to place High Level Enemies before Revenge of the Enemies so RotE AI can be put on the appropriate creatures via your merge patch.

 

Finally the ultimate method of making things more even; giving eveyrone else the same benefits you have. It's incrredibly unfair that you're the only one who has access to potions or spells like those of Apocalypse spell pack, or even have perks distributed at all. ASIS, or Automatic Spells, Increased Spawns tries to change that and gives the enemies the same advantages you have. This plays especially well with mods like Dynamic Loot and Loot and Degradation giving them random magic items and tempering their equipment as well. To install this you first need to update the mod's ini files so it'll play well with mods like Apocalypse. ASIS Improved Inis is an absolute must if you're going to be using ASIS. Next to install via Mod Organizer you want to go into the Data tab above your plugin list, then scroll down to Skyproc Patchers, then ASIS, then you want to add ASIS.jar as an executable. Now go into edit executables either by scrolling the executable selector where you pick Skyrim, SKSE etc up to Edit, or click the green and blue gears button, this has exactly the same effect. Now find ASIS on the list of executables, and in the Arguments line which begins with -jar you'll want to put before -jar "-Xmx1024m" without quotation marks, this makes java use more memory than it normally can and prevents a lot of those null pointer errors  you'll easily get through running Skyproc Patchers through Mod Organizer. Make it a habit to put this on all of the skyproc patchers, Patchus Maximus won't run at all without it, and you should also put it for Automatic Variants, Dual Sheath Redux, Requificator and Everbody's different, even if the program doesn't require it this will make the patching go faster.

 

A word of warning though, do not use ASIS with Requiem if you know what's good for you, or your enemies will actually be quite a bit stronger than you are, and a lot more numerous. Only do that if you actually don't want to win for whatever reason (likely due to a combination of defeat mods and possibly something like Deadly Drain...).

 

EDIT: I forgot one important bit in making the enemies better, their general AI! Revenge of the Enemies handles AI for special enemies, but if you want the likes of bandits to have good AI, use one of the following mods.

 

Duel - Combat Realism is a well known and tried and tested mod. It's a very good one, and one I've used for a long time. However it has one significant issue; if you use this and have Papyrus logging enabled, your Papyrus log will look a lot worse than it actually is, and your game will be running a lot worse. The reason for this is because Duel has some backwards compatibility issues with old versions of itself, and still contains scripts for spells it no longer uses. In combat it checks for these spells, and not finding them reports so to Papyrus, causing significant strain. If you turn off Papyrus then the problem stops as well and the mod runs fine... but you kinda need Papyrus on at times to check the health of  your save game, and when you do turn it on this function in Duel will make it impossible to see what other problems you have, because they will all be excerbated.

 

Ultimate Combat is a newer mod, it includes things like specialised stagger mechanics, locational hits (more damage from a headshot for example) and more, and it's one I've had a lot of fun with. However if you have a very heavy load order be aware that Ultimate Combat takes a LOT of resources to run it's scripts, and there's a very good chance you'll get stack dumps in combat, which might cause things like BDSM scenes to fail. On a lighter load (no Frostfall or needs mods for example) it's fine, it's not enough that'll it'll stop any scene I've run into. Use either this or Duel, don't use both.

 

Combat Evolved is a new mod by some very good people like Crushboss and Raulffin, and it's an extremely well done mod, this will really change how enemies react, they will block more, power attack more, power bash during your power attack so you'll be interrupted, disarm, and generally make combat a lot more interesting. And best of all, it's completely SCRIPT FREE, meaning you can run it even with the heaviest load imaginable (I'm talking a game that's not going to survive past level 20 before save game bloat) and the mod will still work fine, this is perfect for Sexlab players with lots of mods like Defeat, Spectators, Arousal, Lover's Comfort and the like making constant checks, so this is the one I'd most recommend. You can also combine this with any one of the other two for a greater effect, and no negative effects from this mod, just the ones on the other two. I had great effect with this and Ultimate Combat combined, and if you think you can make a game that's not going to require you to check Papyrus often Combat Evolved and Duel might be a very good combination.