When we left off yesterday, we had five items that we still needed to distribute: three chest pieces and one each gauntlets and boots. First things first, we'll set up a working file that contains these five armor records, as well as every outfit, LVLI, and object reference that points to Elven Armor (we'll loop back later on the gauntlets and boots). Next, we're going to create three new variant lists:

 

• Sublist_VAR_ArmorHighQualityCuirass
• Sublist_VAR_ArmorHighQualityGauntlets
• Sublist_VAR_ArmorHighQualityBoots

 

and populate them with the new armor items.

 

 

With those in place, we'll now go through all the records we put in our working file and patch in the new high quality records as replacers for Elven, except for where the record is actually for Thalmor stuff (such as elven armor object references in a Thalmor zone or in the LOTD museum). We'll also leave Project AHO alone for now as it'll be the subject of a different effort in the future (separating DLC2 Dunmer gear).

 

For the object references, we won't mess with the base item. Instead, we'll be adding an XLIB entry that points to the new leveled list. This won't make a big difference at first with the gloves and boots, but it future proofs this work so we don't have to repeat it again down the line.

 

 

When we start getting into the outfits, we'll create an alternate version of the main Elven Armor outfit, since these costumes are used by both Thalmor and non-Thalmor actors. While most of the current Thalmor in the game have already been moved to my more comprehensive Thalmor armor list, we want to keep the baseline intact for future proofing against subsequent mods that may sneak actors past us. Since we don't have an elven-equivalent helmet yet, we'll temporarily put a scaled helmet on the "all items" outfit.

 

 

Parsing through these, I see that Hydragorgon adds an NPC called "disgraced Thalmor." I need to make a mental note that this actor exists, since there's a mod I planned to use for the disgraced Thalmor in 3DNPC, and it sounds like it would be relevent here as well. In fact, I might dust off that mod today so I don't forget - doubly so since I see it's finally made the jump to SSE and addressed the problems impacting one of its armors. 

 

We'll also be leaving a few of the outfits alone - the gilded armor outfit for Phenderix and the CCF Jenassa armor, in particular. Both of those I have my own plans for in the future that are more specific.

 

Oddly, "away, come away" has a Falmer ghost (using the High Elf race, so we're talking Snow Elf, not blind goblin monster) using modern Elven armor. I changed that outfit to use Snow Elf armor.

 

Finally we'll go through and replace instances of Elven Armor in general purpose leveled lists with the new alternative lists:

 

 

With all that done, now most non-Thalmor characters in the world will start having a chance of getting the new gear instead of Elven armor starting at level 12. When I get the time to integrate VM30's as well as Armoury of Tamriel 2, the diversity of this category will grow further with moonstone-forged chain, scale, and plate armor options, but for now this small selection will do the job! 

 

You can see the new armor on these Public Whore bounty hunters I spawned. Normally they would have Elven armor. Their headgear is off the Scaled Armor leveled list, as we discussed earlier.

 

 

Before I get sucked into more costume changes, let's make sure we get in at least some progress on my project of adding more life to the northeast part of the map. Today we'll install Hamlets of Winterhold, which adds three small settlements to that barren region. Now we know what to expect with this mod based on our previous experience with Axis1211's projects: uncompacted but fairly clean mod which includes child actors who need to have their facegen redone. Fortunately this one isn't packed with LOD files, and I'm not going to regenerate my LOD again for a while since I have many other outdoor mods to install.

 

Cleaning check revealed one NPC with a bad tint layer (which may not be a problem since we already have her facegen files - we just need to confirm she doesn't have the dark face bug in game) and the usual edge link corruption, which I fixed with a script. The conflicts within the file were extremely limited. Some minor discrepancies with Majestic Mountains, which I frequently encounter with Axis' mods, but it seems that they use MM as their baseline so the deviations are small; also one random basket got moved which created a false alarm vis-a-vis USSEP. All in all however, this is one of the cleanest mods of this type I've seen in a while.

 

Facegen redirection went smoothly, and I was able to regenerate the child facegen in the CK without difficulty. Interestingly (and kind of excitingly) this mod has voice files, so we'll convert these also. I love it when authors take the time to include voice, and the existence of xVASynth makes this easier than ever. This mod also has a quest in it, so we'll need to regenerate the SEQ file (easily done in xEdit through the context menu). 

 

 

Now we'll go into the game, first to spawn a copy of Failia so we can check her face and then to visit each hamlet. We'll use the COW console command to visit each set of coordinates rather than worrying about trying to remember worldspace cell editor IDs. 

 

 

Looking good! I love how two of them are off the coast; that's a really scenic region that's sadly underused in vanilla.