This post was originally published in December 2016 and has been rewritten.

 

One of the greatest tools I have personally used during my decade in playing and modding Skyrim is Mod Organizer. There are a couple of competitors, but I have found that Mod Organizer has become my go-to support for building my various playthroughs with acutely defined mod lists to make each new game slightly different.

 

With this in mind, when I first wrote this blog post in 2016, I was still very fresh into that journey. I still had the habit of downloading everything and scanning over a mod’s requirement list without really considering the order of mods. I had come from Nexus Mod Manager (now replaced with Vortex Mod Manager), which, at the time, meant installing mods directly into the Data folder. This meant paying attention to the order of installs, something my over-excited and inpatient undiagnosed ADHD brain was unable to manage well at the time. Welcome Crash-To-Desktop, abbreviated to CTD—my old friend.

 

Countless hours of installing, updating, removing, and re-ordering have brought me to be confident in using Mod Organizer today. Along that journey, I developed my own techniques and learned my way around the tool. I learned a lot from the Gopher video series on YouTube, while GamerPoets has a relatively simple video on getting started with the basics. But during my time, there were a couple of little tricks that I picked up, and knowing some of these may just help you, even when you are trying to fight against the rush to just get everything installed and get up and running.

 

To help with your modding journey in the long run, here are some of my learns during my time that I want to share, as they might just help you.

 

While this article primarily focuses on Skyrim, the same concepts can apply to other games in the Bethesda family.

 

MAKE BASE PROFILES

There’s always a mod that requires a new game in order to work, or you discover a trove of mods that could make a great new playthrough on a new character. Or maybe you just want to start from scratch?

 

Such mods like Alternative Start – Live Another Life offers a quick way to skip the open sequence of Skyrim. With various add-ons to give you a plethora of options on how to start your adventure, it saves a lot of time when you want to get straight into a new game. But what about your mod list?

 

In the days of upscaled textures, improved meshes, and redesigned visuals, setting up a new game could also include setting up a new mod list and ticking all of the appropriate mods to start out with. Having a base profile of mods that you will use every time you start is a great way to speed up that process.

 

How to build this will highly depend on your play style and your favorite mods that you may have. Do you always play the same race or gender? Do you always start with the same scenario from Alternative Start? Do you prefer to start from a different location to the game’s default? Do you ignore the main quest altogether, or do at least the Helgen quest for the handful of mods that require you to be past this part in order to use them?

 

These are things I consider when I make a base profile. I usually set mine up with mesh and texture upgrades, location improvements, and lightweight mods such as armor or weapon additions.

I tend to leave script mods out due to the nature of how they implement themselves into the game unless they are particularly lightweight or complete. For example, I will load up SkyUI and RaceMenu as I prefer these interfaces, and these mods are mostly complete or have minimal updates and are quite lightweight. Patches are also a good idea to have in base profiles.

While it’s useful to have a base profile, it’s still good to check those mods for updates through the updater in Mod Organizer before using them.

 

LOAD HEAVY MODS IN SMALL CELLS

This is more for Legacy Skyrim than the Special/Anniversary editions, but it is an option if you feel your system struggles with mods. Even though Special/Anniversary editions of Skyrim are a lot more stable, loading the mods in small cells will allow you to safely check out and test out any changes or updates. While 1.6.x hasn’t given me any problems, I find it handy to do from time to time, particularly if I’m looking at installing or updating a couple of script-heavy mods at once.

 

KEEP A PERSONAL EDITS MOD

Mods are becoming more intuitive. A lot of them now offer us ways to randomize or customize our games a lot more than we could previously, and with this comes an increased opportunity for users to tweak mods to their own preferences. But what is the best way to manage this?

 

First, I’ll share what I recommend you not to do, and that is store your customizations directly in the mod that you are making tweaks to. Adding a customer body texture that you’ve worked on and made some edits to your liking—that’s great! But what if that mod comes to update, and you accidentally hit Replace, and the entire mod is replaced with a new instance leaving your custom texture gone, and you didn’t set for an auto-backup? Obviously, I hope that you created another back of your texture somewhere else, but we are looking worst possible scenario, and mistakes can happen.

 

Backups are always encouraged, but there is another way to avoid this type of issue, and that is to create a personal mod that is to keep a personal edits mod. This is essentially creating a mod that sits at the bottom of your priority list and holds all your personal edits inside. Mod Organizer’s function to have a priority mod order means that adding this to the bottom of your mod list (but still having the correct Data structure inside) means that these files will always overwrite anything in the mod that is higher on the order list. And, if you install an update, your edits will not be touched (but still keep a backup, just in case).

 

It would be handy to make a note of what edits you made to what mods, and this takes us nicely into the next tip!

 

USE THE NOTES SYSTEM

When you download a mod from the Nexus, it typically comes with all the metadata. Description, version number, link to to mod page, and other pieces of information to create a clean trail back should you need to check for any updates, changes, or instructions. This is particularly handy to have, but it only works on an information basis. It’s not unique to you and your setup, and this is where notes will come in handy.

 

What if you need a certain version to run on your game version (1.5.x versus 1.6.x for example), or you have a certain version download that has features a new version has removed, but you want to keep the old version? It can become quite complicated over time to remember all these changes to the point that you accidentally download and overwrite a previous file, and suddenly, you lose those features, or your game starts to crash.

 

The same applies to mods that you download which are not Nexus-based. These mods likely won’t have descriptions, version numbers, or other details and leave you more at risk of slipping up. While I encourage at least updating the version number and a link to the download page, we all know that mods can be more complex than this.

 

Adding a note on a mod about your personal setup (or profile, if you have multiple) and needs to get your game to work can be a lifesaver. It serves as a reminder of what you may or may not want to download, what version you need, and if you really need to upgrade or stick with what you have. Unless you play every day and you have memorized your complete mod order and all appropriate mod version numbers, it’s likely that you may forget during breaks (I certainly have) and come back to just update everything to new versions without thinking twice. Simple notes are best, something that just keeps you right in times when you need that little nudge on what you did before.

 

It’s important to note that notes are saved inside the INI files that Mod Organizer creates. If you install a new mod and use the Replace option, or if your mod has an INI file as an option and you use the Replace or Merge options, or even replace the whole folder, you will lose your notes. A way around this is to install your updated mod with a new name (I append my new update mods with the version number when installing to compare changes) and move your notes over to the new version before deleting the old one.

 

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I hope that some of these suggestions are helpful and put a good case forward for you to consider. Not all of these will work for you, but the important thing is to find a system that works for you. Modding, even as an end-user adding these custom creations into your game, can be a lot of work. With a little forward planning, you can reduce the time spent raiding support posts on the mod and hunting Reddit threads looking for the answer and get you back up and running with less hassle than necessary.