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About this blog

Greetings everyone! This page contains my various Bethesda blogs. At the time of this update, it contains my troubleshooting playthrough series, my Skyrim modding diary, my mod cleanup case study series, and my Shout Like a Virgin beta test blog. You can access all the entries from the sidebar on the right side of your screen.

 

Playthroughs

I've recently exceeded the 1000 mod threshold, and it's time to start periodically doing brief playthroughs to ferret out hidden conflicts and other bugs. In this series, we'll do shorter, more focused adventures where we try to tell an interesting story and also talk about what problems we ran into them and how we addressed them.

 

  • Charley's Story: Charlotte Ellison survived a nuclear war by spending more than two hundred years in stasis. Now she has to survive in a very new world, facing very new threats. A Fallout 4 playthrough.
  • The Spider's Web: Kirstia's search for answers has taken her to the island of Solstheim. Now she must uncover the secret of The Teacher - also known as Mephala - and continue the journey to master her powerful magical heritage. But can she survive as her enemies, new and old, close in? 
  • The Curious Case of Forrien Hlaalu: A year after she returned to Northpoint, Kirstia is back in Skyrim and looking for answers. The strange events that occured during her search for Sybil Fjotra continue to trouble her, as does the ongoing influence of the strange gods of the Forsworn. After a chance encounter over drinks, a wizard from the College of Winterhold sets her on the trail of a scholar who may have the answers she needs...
  • The Search for the Sybil: Exiled from Skyrim to the remote land of Northpoint, Kirstia Bjissen has fallen on hard times. Just as she hits rock bottom, a voice speaks to her and charges her with a sacred quest that will take her back to her native land - and likely into danger. Can Kirstia find the new Sybil of Dibella before her past catches up with her?
  • Shout Like a Virgin: Miraculously saved from death, Monilee of High Rock finds herself in Skyrim, a land riven by civil war and harboring dark secrets. While she tries to build a new life in this foreign land, she's haunted by half-remembered dreams, and in chasing them she discovers her role in the turning of the ages. However, Monilee has not gone unnoticed by powers outside the mortal realm. Used as a pawn in the struggle between Nocturnal and Dibella, it will take all her wits, endurance, bravery, and stubbornness to reclaim sovereignty over her body and her soul.

 

Modding Diary

This series tracks my modding projects in-between playthroughs and case studies. The main focus will be on the technical processes of cleaning, editing, and integrating mods into a large load order configuration, including managing emergent multi-mod interactions. 

 

Modding Case Studies

This blog reviews the tools and techniques that authors and end users can apply to make their mods as stable and compatible as possible, as well as how end users can integrate complicated mods into a large load order setup. In addition to coverage of well known techniques such as automatic mod cleaning, this blog delves into more complicated issues such as navmesh repair. 

 

Entries in this blog

Charley's Story II

Home Improvement (Charley's Story, Chapter 34)

Getting the Abernathy family to put on the vault suits was just the start of the project, of course. Putting aside the fact that I promised Connie to make immediate improvements to their fort, realistically we had to make those improvements anyway. It was only a matter of time before the raiders in the area came to see Sanctuary as their enemy - not jus potential prey, but a genuine threat to them. And because of that, anyone aligned with Sanctuary would become a target.    So I had ba
Modding Diary - June 2022

Bethesda Modding Diary - 05 June 2022

Well, yesterday's session was interesting. After doing some digging I'm pretty confident I isolated the issue and also found a way to fix it. However, in the process I determined that the way the SPID distribution was done could have been accomplished better with a normal plugin-based integration. So we'll be disassembling the SPID elements of the mod and reworking the mod as a traditional item distribution mod.   Here's our starting mod counts:   Skyrim Mods:
Modding Diary - June 2022

Bethesda Modding Diary - 04 June 2022

Well, I was originally planning on saving this for tomorrow, but I'm kind of having writer's block so instead of writing prose I'll install some more mods. Thanks to the case study I did earlier today, our starting mod count has grown a bit.   Skyrim Mods installed: 1,677 Plugins active: 1,638 Last Load Order Index: E5 Fallout Mods Installed: 475 Plugins active: 537 Last Load Order Index: A5
Miscellaneous

Mini Case Study: ESL Flagging and Legacy of the Dragonborn

Welcome back, and hope you're all having a nice relaxing weekend. Instead of a normal modding diary today, we'll be doing a special mini case study focusing on one objective: cutting down the number of hard load order index reservations in SSE by compacting mods associated with Legacy of the Dragonborn.    So why is this an issue? If you're familiar with ESL flagging, you know that often you have to change the form ID structure of a file to apply the ESL flag. That's because ESL-flagge
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Modding Diary - June 2022

Bethesda Modding Diary - 03 June 2022

Welcome back, folks, and happy Friday. Time for some more modding, I think! If you read yesterday's chapter of Charley's story, you got a little bonus mod diary entry at the end covering how to use material swaps to add more flags to the game. I won't reiterate that in this volume, so you'll note that the starting mod count for Fallout has gone up. Here's where we stand going into today's modding:   Skyrim Mods installed: 1,665 Plugins active: 1,544
Charley's Story II

Green Thumb (Charley's Story, Chapter 33)

After we raised the flags, the day passed with a heady, celebratory mien. None of us quite had the words to explain what we felt at the time, but I think looking back on it, it was the sense that we'd been the lucky few to witness something historic with our own eyes. And after, unplanned but somehow feeling like we were all coordinated - like we knew exactly what we needed to do, there was a day of rest and leisure. Home-cooked meals were made and shared, small parties and get-togethers were ha
Charley's Story II

Flag Day (Charley's Story, Chapter 32)

That meeting left me feeling like I had a thousand pounds on my back. The settlers - my settlers - my people, they wanted a lot from me, and part of me felt doubt about achieving it. They wanted me to, at risk of putting too fine a point on it, to take over Drumlin Diner. To get Trudy to pledge allegiance to Sanctuary, to me, when the act of doing so entirely favors me. They wanted me to take the community at Ridge and make them a part of ours. They wanted me to oversee the process of Sanctuary
Modding Diary - June 2022

Bethesda Modding Diary - 02 June 2022

Welcome back, everyone. Today is going to be a shorter entry than last time as my schedule is a bit tighter, but we can still make some good progress. Our starting counts today are:   Skyrim Mods installed: 1,656 Plugins active: 1,540 Last load order: EE Fallout 4 Mods installed: 471 Plugins active: 533 Last load order: A3   New Today On The Nexus   Seeking a Spe
Modding Diary - June 2022

Bethesda Modding Diary - 01 June 2022

Hi folks, and welcome back to my Bethesda Modding Diary series. You'll note that now its a Bethesda diary and not a Skyrim one, because this will also cover modding my Fallout 4 build - though to be fair the focus will still mostly be on Skyrim.   Status Report   Rescuing Kirstia Cleaning Up Temporary Files   Are Script Enhancements For Us?   More NPC Beautification   Visual and Quality of Life Enhancements   Time Fo
Charley's Story II

Town Meeting (Charley's Story, Chapter 31)

I ended up spending the night on the Ridge (in my mind, it had gone from 'the ridge' to 'the Ridge' now that, under the guidance of the ASAM sensors, a small town was practically bursting out of the ground). Before the sun failed entirely, I helped plan out good spots for a few more ASAM sensors, then I shut off the radio beacon and made sure that Bart had made a decision about Lily and her family. I was pleased to hear that he'd agreed with my solution, and with my work done I borrowed a sleepi
Miscellaneous

Meanwhile, in Skyrim...

Hi folks, I hope you have all been enjoying Charley's adventures. Meanwhile, I'm a little embarrassed to say that I think I've burned out a bit on Kirsti's adventure. I have only myself to blame: I launched into her latest adventure with a less clear idea of what I wanted to do than before, and especially with the more focused Fallout playthrough running in parallel, I'm just not mustering the energy to dive into her game for now. On top of that, I'm fast accumulating a pile of interesting mods
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Charley's Story II

Squatter's Rights (Charley's Story, Chapter 30)

As it happened, it was Jake who found me, and not vice versa. He was just outside the gate, scrutinizing the sign by the trading post.    "Disrobe completely, huh?" he asked, "Sounds like you've got an interesting place running here."   I shrugged, "if you're curious, come on in - I'll introduce you to everyone."   "No, no, I think my love handles need some work before I go skinny dipping. But listen, Charley, have you been up to the radio tower since we cleared out
Charley's Story II

Body Issues (Charley's Story, Chapter 29)

"Disrobe... completely?" Preston asked.   Hidden behind the faceplate of my helmet, I was sure I looked very amused. Evidently in my absence, some of the settlers (I suspected Winter) had taken it upon themselves to move forward with some ideas that I had only half thought through. Still, it seemed they grasped the core of my vision for Sanctuary.   "We'll decontaminate your equipment and issue new clothing. All the housing units have showers with clean water, so you can wash
Charley's Story II

The Last Minuteman (Charley's Story, Chapter 28)

We passed through Sanctuary on the way to Concord. I didn't have time to really stay and chat, but I smiled when I saw what Winter and the gang had been up to in my absence - they'd taken the Sanctuary Hills sign from near the Old North Bridge, cleaned all the vines and overgrowth off it, and remounted it above the main gate. I made a mental note to put some spotlights on it so its visible at night, but that would have to wait for some other time.      As we got closer to Co
Charley's Story II

Radio Tower (Charley's Story, Chapter 27)

I dreamed about Nate. About the good times we'd had before the war, about the trip to Acadia National Park we'd been planning for the next summer, about our dreams for the future. And then I woke up, with Seth next to me in my bed, snoring away. I felt like crap. Slipping out of bed, I took a long shower and thought about my life. Intellectually, I knew that Nate was gone; I knew that spending a night with a man was healthy and that I needed to carry on with my life. But emotionally? I felt like
Charley's Story II

Introductions and Intruders (Charley's Story, Chapter 26)

An unseasonably warm rain was just rolling in as I caught up with Seth and Lila, and it didn't take long before their clothes were plastered to their skin. Still, no one was shivering, and after removing my helmet - I'd been practicing at removing the air filter without help and managed it pretty smoothly - I called the other members of the settlement over to make the introductions. I could see both of their eyes widening a little as they surveyed the group.   "This is... you're the va
Charley's Story

Glass Shortage (Charley's Story, Chapter 25)

I tried hard to distract myself by working on the apartment and greenhouse for Winter's parents, but I couldn't shake a growing feeling of dread about what the future had in store for me. I knew I was probably being paranoid, but I found it unsettling that rumors about Sanctuary were already spreading. Combine that with the raiders we'd caught spying on us, and I was certain that spring of 2288 was going to come with serious challenges - not just challenges to our ongoing building plans, but dir
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Charley's Story

Spring Thaw (Charley's Story, Chapter 24)

I stewed on what I'd seen up by the old high tension tower for a few days before calling everyone together to talk about it. I explained my concerns: the good news saw that I'd tracked the watcher back to a raider camp and wiped them out. The bad news? We had no idea how long they'd been watching us, and I didn't think we could count on it just being those three who knew about us. We were getting close to the point when we'd be opening up the vault and bringing down the rest of the crew to Sanct
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Charley's Story

Secret Admirer (Charley's Story, Chapter 23)

With the trading post functionally complete (even if we weren't getting much in the way of visitors yet), the next thing I needed to do was finish the perimeter wall. I still had plenty of cement, and more on the way, so from a supply perspective at least I didn't have much to worry about. I did have some things I needed to decide however. For example, did I want more guard towers like what I built on top of the trading post? Protected firing positions were going to be important for repelling wo
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Charley's Story

Trading Post (Charley's Story, Chapter 22)

While I waited for the first large shipment of cement to arrive, I wondered what I'd do with the smaller shipment that Lucy Abernathy had brought over. My original plan for the wall had been predicated on two assumptions: first, that initially I'd only need housing for me, Holly, and the Ainsleigh family, and second, that I could use the collapsed houses as wall segments. Neither assumption was true anymore. On one hand, now I had three more people to house -- and honestly, I doubted they'd be t
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Charley's Story

Drumlin Diner (Charley's Story, Chapter 21)

After I suited up the next morning, I met with each of the settlers to find out if there was anything they needed. My plan was to try and barter for anything we couldn't obtain locally, and I didn't want to make the long trip, only to find I'd come back missing something important. Winter and the Donahue sisters didn't have anything too exotic they asked for, mostly just raw materials they needed for fabricating some household goods and otherwise improving our little village.    Of cou
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Charley's Story

Scratch-Built Home (Charley's Story, Chapter 20)

"You hit the jackpot, Charley!"   Winter was practically bouncing up and down when she showed up in my living room the next morning. She'd apparently more or less failed at sleeping the night before, and around midnight she wriggled out from between the Donahue sisters to work on the DRM controller through the night. Just before dawn she plugged it into the Rosas' Workshop and... well, here she was in my living room looking like she was about to jump out of her skin.  
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Charley's Story

Super Mutants (Charlie's Story, Chapter 19)

Super Mutants. This was going to be trouble. My companions back at the vault had warned me about the Supers - warned me to avoid them if I could, and to run away if I couldn't. The way they told it, the big bastards were strong, fast, completely ruthless, and had a strong appreciation for the taste of human flesh. And after seeing the way they'd turned the West Everett water tower into a larder, I could see that those stories were accurate.    I knew that I'd have to approach the area
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Charley's Story

Road Trip (Charley's Story, Chapter 18)

While Winter worked her shift outside cleaning up the neighborhood, I focused on drilling into the Workshop technical manual. In particular, I started looking deeper into some of the access codes the previous owner had penciled into the margins of the manual. Some of them, unfortunately, seemed to be regionally locked or tied to specific firmware versions, and they didn't work right on the Rosas' Workshop. One in particular that caught my eye was a region-locked code accompanied by a note: West
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Charley's Story

Breakthroughs (Charlie's Story, Chapter 17)

January wasn't even half way done and so many important things had happened. First and maybe most importantly, I finally figured out how to patch the fission battery into the power systems from the Workshop. In the end, the answer was hidden in plain sight. I think I mentioned before that the Workshop had an entry in its catalogue for a fusion generator. I didn't have anything close to the resources needed to replicate it, and I had some doubts about my ability to safely assemble the kit, but it
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