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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

Working Holiday (Charley's Story, Chapter 16)

To give credit where credit's due, we did our best to put together a little Christmas dinner when the 25th rolled around. Stef harvested the scrawny products of our failed melon and gourd plots and managed to put together a reasonable approximation of mashed sweet potatoes, while Holly grilled up some of our meat stores along with mushroom steaks. The experience drove home how many things we were missing in terms of our long term supply needs, but it was a good coming-together experience for the
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gregaaz in Charley's Story

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Charley's Story

Alternative Diet (Charley's Story, Chapter 15)

A few days after my trip down to Wicked Shipping, we had a close call with a pack of Ghouls. Oddly enough, I'd been dreaming about my encounter at the shipping lockup, and how the fight could have gone badly when I was awakened by gunfire and the roar of angry ferals. I rolled out of bed and grabbed my pistol from the nightstand, and I almost ran out to fight with just that... but remembering my past experiences, I also took the time to retrieve the shotgun from my gun rack. It turned out to be
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gregaaz in Charley's Story

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Charley's Story

Expanding Boundaries (Charley's Story, Chapter 14)

"So Fred, explain to me - why haven't you got rid of that grody hat?" I asked. "Don't we have something better in the catalogue?"     Fred shrugged noncommittally. Over the past two weeks, he'd gotten used to the vault suit. Now I almost never saw him trip over the high heels, and it seemed like he'd got the belts and straps seated comfortably enough that he wasn't pausing to adjust things from time to time. He also seemed to have given up on finding pants to wear over the s
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Charley's Story

Community Standards (Charley's Story, Chapter 13)

"Listen, Charley, we need to talk."   Well, that didn't sound ominous at all. I considered the scene. Holly was facing me, and I didn't see where Winter was at, but Stef and Fred were standing a bit back and clearly watching. Fred's expression said 'concern,' but Stef was straight-up glowering at me. Clearly, something bad had happened while I was out to visit the Abernathy family.    "Alright," I said after a moment, "let's sit down in the rec room and talk, then."  
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gregaaz in Charley's Story

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Charley's Story

Ten Bullets (Charley's Story, Chapter 12)

I ran all the way to the Abernathy Farm. Last time I ventured out of Sanctuary Hills, when I went to Cambridge, I walked. I had to walk - I didn't have the endurance to run or even jog most of the way. And that was following the still more or less intact roads. This time, I was going cross-country, and I was running the whole time. The power suit was just incredible - its mechanisms we remarkably miniaturized, and they ran quite and cool, but they boosted my own strength and made the whole trip
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Charley's Story

Suiting Up (Charley's Story, Chapter 11)

I spent the next week working with Winter to drill down into the Vault-Tec proprietary catalogue. She had a knack for hacking into these systems, and in the process we came up with a lot of ideas for using some of the other Workshop options in unconventional ways. When spring came along, I was pretty confident that I could set up all my new neighbors with pretty comfortable housing in Sanctuary Hills. Indeed, this took care of a key problem with defending the settlement - one person just isn't e
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Charley's Story

Underground Radio (Charley's Story, Chapter 10)

It was November 14th when I got the radio working. But let me rewind for a moment to explain things. The Pip-Boy I found while I was trying to escape the vault had a built-in radio. However, each time I tried to switch it on, all I got was silence and a "no signal found" error on the screen.   At first I assumed this was just a sign that there weren't any active radio stations anymore, but Stef explained to me that this wasn't true. There were two radio stations still broadcasting in t
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gregaaz in Charley's Story

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Charley's Story

Wintering Over (Charley's Story, Chapter 9)

Having reached an understanding with Holly's family, I next visited the Workshop and plugged in my administrator code. The Workshop accepted it happily and hummed to life, ready to get to work. While Fred went topside to gather some wood - the one thing I was sure we'd need - I asked the women to put together a list of the implements they'd need to get some farming going. Meanwhile, I went looking for the medical room. I knew there was one around here somewhere because I'd visited it many times
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gregaaz in Charley's Story

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Charley's Story

Housemates (Charley's Story, Chapter 8)

I neglected to mention before, I did find a battery - though just another chemical one, not a fission model that would last a long time. Where, you ask? In a rusted-out car behind the Cambridge Polymer Labs building. So that whole 'adventure' was kind of a bust, and now I was faced with trying to make it home with the sun already setting.    Thinking back on that night, I'm not completely sure how I even made it back to Sanctuary Hills. It got cold and dark that night, though there was
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Charley's Story

Locked In (Charley's Story, Chapter 7)

Just to reiterate, I'd just gone from being an up and coming lawyer to being... a janitor. Locked in a basement with zombies. OK, Ghouls, but at the time I didn't understand the distinction. As you can probably imagine, I took a very conservative approach to exploring my new workplace. Creeping through the shadows, no flashlight, doing my very best to stay quiet and hoping the "zombies" couldn't smell fresh meat.   Right about that time, I was deeply regretting my decision to investiga
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gregaaz in Charley's Story

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Miscellaneous

Programming Note - Super-Robot-Wars-induced delay

Hi folks, hope you're enjoying Charley's adventure so far! I'm excited to get rolling with her next chapter, and also with Kirstia's ongoing adventures. However, Super Robot Wars 30 just dropped its expansion pack today, so I anticipate that I won't have much to post here for the next few days as I check out the new 'mech content. Thanks for you patience, and see you all soon!
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Charley's Story

Employment Opportunity (Charley's Story, Chapter 6)

So that was a development I absolutely should have expected, but didn't. In case you were wondering, first frost in 2287 was the night of October 28-29. I'd woken up feeling chilly, but that in and of itself wasn't really unusual. Despite all the repairs I'd made, the house was still pretty drafty. Still, when I saw the frost-kissed ground outside my front door, I realized that I'd been failing to account for a dawning problem: winter. Even if the apocalyptic nuclear winters had passed while I w
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gregaaz in Charley's Story

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Charley's Story

Settling In (Charley's Story, Chapter 5)

I spent the rest of the week fixing up the house and cleaning up the rest of my property. The back yard was an overgrown mess, but after I uprooted some of the wild shrubs and fed them into the Workshop, it was a lot more walkable. I also found the rusted remains of my patio set - which I also fed into that insatiable red machine. Curiously, when I was done I noticed the cloth hopper was a bit more full. Evidently, the machine had managed to extract some useful fibers out of something I stuffed
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gregaaz in Charley's Story

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Charley's Story

The Ship of Theseus (Charley's Story, Chapter 4)

You learn a lot about a person when you clean their house. The Hawthornes were running a drug operation out of their living room. Who would have thought? Or that one of the Ables seemed to be hooked on painkillers. Fortunately, their well-stocked medicine cabinet also had a bottle of Rad-X, just the thing until I found an alternative to wild watermelon. As I kept scrounging for materials and filling up the Workshop, I found more and more little remnants of my neighbors' interrupted lives. After
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Kirstia's Third Adventure

The Library of Madness (Kirstia's Third Adventure, Chapter 5)

Perhaps you will prove clever enough to uncover the secrets hidden here. If so... welcome.   This was a place of madness. Hermaeus Mora, the Lord of Secrets. He who keeps the Forbidden Knowledge. If Mephala is the Teacher of Secrets, Mora is the Hoarder of them. And this cursed place... this was his library.    I took stock of my surroundings, checked my armor and weapons, silently reached out to my patrons. At first, silence. I was fully equipped, having seemingly been trans
Charley's Story

Turning On The Lights (Charley's Story, Chapter 3)

The next morning, I woke up feeling chilled. Despite the thick blankets that came with the bed, I realized what was left of my house just wasn't adequately sealed against the weather. I was going to have to board up the house if I wanted it more hospitable. Then again, I'd already been thinking about building walls the night before, so I started reviewing the options in the Workshop catalogue. To my dismay, I discovered my options were rather limited. I suppose I could have fabricated individual
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Charley's Story

A Place To Lay My Head (Charley's Story, Chapter 2)

I stood there on the bluff above Sanctuary Hills, looking down on the remains of my home. Even though I'd watched the mushroom cloud blossom, it shocked me to see the aftermath. And worse, I was alone. So I stood, I looked, and when my legs started to get tired I sat. It took me a good long time to move past the sight of everything destroyed and to start thinking about what I was going to do next. I'd read enough post-apocalyptic novels that I had a general idea of what I needed to do to survive
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gregaaz in Charley's Story

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Miscellaneous

Programming Note - Site Performance Issues

Hi folks, it's been a little while. I wanted to take a moment to update you all on one of the reasons you haven't seen new entries recently. Basically, and I'm sure you've noticed this also, Loverslab is have pretty serious performance issues. Currently, I experience long latency on almost every website functions and it's very difficult for me to successfully upload images. I soldiered through this for a while, but as performance has continued to degrade it's reached the point where it's not ten
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gregaaz in Miscellaneous

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Miscellaneous

Mini Case Study: Guards Armor Replacer as a Standalone

Hi folks, we'll be back with Kirsti's adventure soon (I'm a little distracted with Star Citizen 3.17's public test right now). But in the meanwhile, a commenter on Reddit asked about turning Guards Armor Replacer into a standalone mod. I actually did just that much earlier in my modding effort, and under normal circumstances I'd just share my converted plugin. However, this mod has somewhat closed permissions that restrict sharing edited versions, so instead I offered to document the steps to do
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Kirstia's Third Adventure

The Secret of the Bloodskaals (Kirstia's Third Adventure, Chapter 4)

And just like that, I was descending into another cave full of divines know what dangers. I had little reason to doubt Hircine's advice, and it seemed like I could do some good investigating Crescius' mystery, but I proceeded with caution. I was reasonably confident that pitfalls and loose rocks weren't going to be the extent of the challenges in my path. Keeping my father's sword and the Dwemer arquebus close at hand - I had some doubts about my ability to swing an axe or draw a bow in these ti
Kirstia's Third Adventure

An Uninvited Guest (Kirstia's Third Adventure, Chapter 3)

I retired to my room with a hearty-looking loaf of braided bread and a cup of thick, piping hot juice. Carrot juice, according to Geldis the barkeeper. The taste was... unusual, but not bad. I ended up tearing off bits of bread and dipping them in the stew-thick juice. By the time my hunger was sated, I was about ready to head on my way, but a sense of fullness prompted me to make use of the nightsoil bucket before I dressed. While busy doing my business, the door to my room quietly opened. I gl
Kirstia's Third Adventure

The Call of the Obelisk (Kirstia's Third Adventure, Chapter 2)

I don't think the gate guard was sure what to do with me. I repeated myself, with a bit more wind in my lungs this time - "I need to talk to Captain Veleth. It's about the ash spawn."   "The ash spawn," he asked, as if slightly dazed. "What do you know about the ash spawn, outlander?"   I was starting to get a little impatient at that point, but before I could unleash on the dumbstruck guard I saw Veleth in the distance. Pushing past, I closed the distance with Veleth and cal
Kirstia's Third Adventure

The Trouble With Fort Frostmoth (Kirstia's Third Adventure, Chapter 1)

Solstheim is a curious place. Ancient Nordic soil, and yet foreign. For almost two centuries, the displaced peoples of Vvardenfell have called this island home, their Morrowind culture slowly burying what was before, much as the ash of the Red Mountain covers the land deeper and deeper with each passing year. I can feel that ash between my toes as I walk. Like fine sand, it clings to most every surface, and I fear it would choke me if I didn't take care to cover my mouth - blind me if I didn't p
Modding Diary - March 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 26 March 2022

Well, it's time to set up our MCMs and get ready to launch Kirsti's next adventure. If you're curious and want a mini-spoiler, I've updated the mod description with a brief capsule of what to expect. This is probably going to be a somewhat shorter than usual diary unless I run into any complications or surprises that I think there's value in documenting.   Interested in seeing the details of the configuration I'm running? I've updated my Modwatch Page with the setup for this adventure.
Modding Diary - March 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 25 March 2022

Hi folks, this is going to be a quick one. I'm still working on getting my new adventure set up, but I wanted to share a little insight into what I'm doing other than setting MCMs.   Elderly Faces   A Couple Late Additions   And that's the state of the modding project when I started doing the MCMs. That looks like its going to roll over into tomorrow, but I'm very excited about starting up a new adventure! If you don't see an entry tomorrow, don't worry - it pro
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