Jump to content

Skyrim Modding Diary - 21 March 2022


gregaaz

592 views

Welcome back, everyone. We're getting closer to starting our next adventure story, so over the course of this week we're going to start to pivot away from general improvements to more targeted content that's relevant to our next playthrough. Today we're going to start working on getting our mods up to date as well as wrapping up Bells of Skyrim. 

 

We're starting the day with 1,534 mods installed, 1,488 plugins active, and a final load order of EC.

 

First Things First

Spoiler

Before we get into our main objectives, let's wrap up our work from this weekend. We have one more outfit to install (COCO Scarlet Rose) and one graphics enhancer (Freezing Cold Frost Salts) to get loaded up. 

 

The Frost Salt mod was totally unremarkable, with nothing worth noting here. As for the COCO outfit, it's a multi-piece outfit and so we need to take stock of its body slot assignments.

 

  • Top: Slot 32 (body) - OK
  • Neck: Slot 57 (dildo) - Bad, should be Slot 45 (collar)
  • Shoes: Slot 37 (feet) - OK
  • Skirt: Slot 44 (gag) - Bad, should be Slot 58 (corset/harness/abdomen)
  • Left Pauldron: Slot 59 (arm cuffs) - Acceptable but should ideally be slot 48 per DD-TAWOBA integration plan
  • Panties: Slot 45 (collar) - Bad, should be Slot 49
  • Gloves: Slot 33 (hands) - OK
  • Stockings: Slot 56 (bra or shirt) - Bad, should be Slot 53 (leg cuff)
  • Necklace: Slot 35 (amulet) OK

 

So this is a bit of a mess from a compatibility point of view. We'll start by changing to slots in Outfit Studio. Having done that, now we want to repeat the process in xEdit. 

 

image.png.82ff186425035c55099c509bb9f6b37c.png

 

Last but not least, we need to add our customary compatibility edits - SOS_Revealing keyword for the tops and coverage for slots 52 and 54 for the skirts and the panties (ARMA only for these). When I first spotted this I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to use it. It had some thematic similarities with RyanReos' Primrose outfit and could have been a candidate for Thalmor officers, but ultimately I decided against that. Instead - and keeping in mind its aesthetics that definitely do fit with an elven origin - I decided to make a unique outfit for everyone's favorite Altmer clothier, Taarie. 

 

image.png.6c745a8024735091f34bf259efa0eafe.png

 

I omitted the kind of ratty looking stockings but otherwise used all the parts. Let's visit her store and see how she looks.

 

ScreenShot1669.png.74b00781ec8c68d2de2391a86efc44ce.pngScreenShot1668.png.a03df12433499f0cd8470aa124064f68.pngScreenShot1667.png.fe909309fdad2a9334afc2e1788e830d.pngScreenShot1666.png.bfc8910417d627f510541911dc460fea.png

 

Generally it looks good. You can see some collision breaks in the second and especially the third screenshot, but this seems to largely be an artifact of pausing the game - in actual motion it's not as noticeable.

 

Fixing the Bells

Spoiler

In our last diary, we talked about the strategy for fixing the city bells in Windhelm and Solitude. We'll do everything but the navmesh today (we'll do all the navmesh for this mod tomorrow). We'll start by making a working file for the two cities and adding any relevant masters. Then we'll hop into the CK to fine-tune these entries.

 

image.png.2f97ff15abc85cd39442a1f072c5eda4.png

 

Here in solitude we pulled the tower away from the wall (which in our modded setup is the Groot's Solitude house that was intruding).

 

image.png.255743430843bb7963b0d0eb8bf44499.png

 

Here's the Windhelm tower. All this stuff is occluded by the Industrialized Skyrim statics, so we need to move them. Here below you can see the tentative relocation... but we need to check to make sure these spots are all accessible in the fully modded setup.

 

image.png.053c799b86af555b7b0adf5728068367.png

 

I had to fine tune a few more things but as you can see it's looking good now!

 

ScreenShot1672.png.a52ccc67fe584d1647dbfee235e07b50.pngScreenShot1671.png.fbc653d5716853683b8a7ca834a1baf6.pngScreenShot1670.png.b20e6004e5e7ee82063678bc662a303d.png

 

Now all we need to do is update the navmesh and we'll be good to go!

 

Mod Updates

One of the occupational hazards of running a large mod load is things getting out of date. Before we launch into our next adventure, we'll be taking some time to look through our catalog and find opportunities for upgrades. Today let's take a look through what's on Loverslab and see if we have any cases where we're running obsolete versions.

 

The Opposite of an Upgrade

Spoiler

Remember how I was whining about Yamete but still saying I'd give it a fair shot in my next playthrough? Well, I changed my mind after reading this post. Yamete's out. SL Defeat's back in. Of course, this means we need to go back and first unwind Yamete from my conflict resolution patches and restore CR patching for Defeat, but it's worth it in the long run.

 

According to the Patreon post, the Yamete author is going to be releasing a new version that promises to do everything better, from the ground up, but I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, I'll stick with SL Defeat since, while its old, it actually works and offers a feature complete product.

 

Speaking in the "settled nature" of SLD, at some point I need to loop back and see about crunching this mod down to an ESL-flagged plugin. I don't see a lot of reason why it has to remain uncompacted, but I'll want to give it a thorough review before I crunch it down.

 

Anyway, in summary: Yamete's own author abandoned it, so I'm not going to waste my time trying it out. We'll be using SL Defeat in the next playthrough.

 

What Else Is Out There?

Spoiler

We've got a few updates for mods that are already installed, specifically:

 

  • Troubles of Heroine 2.3.2 -> 2.4.1
  • Sisterhood of Dibella 10/31/21 -> 1/31/22
  • Toys Framework 1.7 -> 1.83
  • Maximum Carnage 6.9.3 -> 6.9.9
  • Dripping When Aroused  6/7/19 -> 3/3/22
  • Skooma Whore: Addicted  3.635 -> 3.65
  • Pama's Deadly Furniture 1.7 -> 2.0

 

Troubles of Heroine is going to require a deeper dive before we kick off our new adventure. As you can see below, it conflicts a number of vanilla scripts. I don't really care when only SSE is conflicted, but when it starts fighting with other quest mods that's a sign I probably need to merge changes between the two. 

 

image.png.19fb564fa49bab3c1487ea4009f3b966.png

 

Lots of errors in this mod stack, also:

 

image.png.2654ae93d7695acd9c4a51c8f047de9a.png

 

I don't really have the time today to work through all of this, so we'll need to loop back tomorrow and try to give this one some more time. In fact, it looks like a lot of these mods are going to have to wait because one after another I keep finding technical blockers in these. That's not necessarily a bad thing; just means that I need to commit more time to it than I'd hoped.

 

I had better luck with Dripping When Aroused and with Skooma Whore. Both installed very smoothly, though on Skooma Whore I ran into a case of a stripped master that left behind null references. Fortunately, I have the other file and was able to find the original copy of the script so I could patch in the missing references.

 

image.png.746cb45e1f2a42795269dc08be0629b3.png

 

That's it for today - we'll finish up our Bells of Skyrim navmeshing tomorrow and continue grinding through the mod updates.

 

We ended the day with 1,537 mods installed, 1,490 plugins active, and a final load order index of EC.

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. For more information, see our Privacy Policy & Terms of Use