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Playerhome Review: Whiterun Safehold


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Whiterun Safehold is a buyable minicastleĀ (more like a mansion) on the mountains just south of the whiterun stables, right behind the farm. It has enough space for 12-24 followers, is well navmeshed with plenty of idle-markers, and very performance-friendly. The only thing that stops this home from being gold is a few shortcomings that could be easily fixed in CK.Ā  Yet even with those few shortcomings, it's easily my favorite playerhome.

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LOCATION ON MAP:

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PROS:
+ Located near whiterun, yet at a place where it doesn't interfere with other homes

+ Properly buyable at a reasonable price. This is not a cheat-home.

+ Reasonably sized. This is not an overkill-home with a hundred displaycases and stuff. In fact most of the displaycases and mannequins are in a seperate "armory"-cell.

+ Very performance-friendly. This home is neither cluttered nor empty-looking, and all the decoration is statics, so havoc won't kill your CPU, and people don't throw stuff around while moving.

+ Awesome for 12-24 followers! The entire home is well navmeshed, has an abundance of idle-markers for NPCs to play around, and there 12 follower beds plus a guest bed, in addition to the player's own bed. There's also a dining hall with plenty of NPC-markers. So "12-24 followers" is not an exaggeration: If you set them up into day and night shifts via MHIYH, there indeed is enough space for everyone, without anybody having to sleep on the floor, or bumping into each other. And the well-done navmeshes mean they actually can find their around.

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CONS:
- Ugly wall and floor texture that gets reused everywhere and has easy to recognize patterns. I had to spend about an hour in paintNET to make it less repetitive and a bit darker, since it was an eyesore. Fortunatelly it's just a single texture that needs fixing.

- Lacks category-specific storage containers. Take the kitchen for example: It has 3 barrels and about 5 sacks to store food. Quantitatively that's enough, but it's hard to remember where you put things, cause there's just barrels and sacks. It's the same with other workstations: Generic-looking storage containers only. Ā Eli's Breezehome for example did this far better, where you have a drinks basket with visible drings for... well, drinks... and other 'themed' containers.

- Zero storage containers in the foyer and dining hall! Seriously what the fuck? This is the central hub of this home, yet everything is just deco and idlemarkers? No functionality whatsoever in the room players visit the most?

- Smithing is outside on the castle walls. Not a problem per se, except the towers are so freaking high, that it takes forever to get up there.

- No upgrades. It would've been nice if this home had some customizability and work involved. I mean, it's supposed to be an old run-down minicastle, so getting it back in shape would seem perfectly lore-friendly?

- The fast-travel marker is right in front of the entrance door, in a tight space behind the gate. Not a good place to leave your horse? It's easily avoidable though, because the Whiterun stables are nearby: Just fast-travel there and run up the hill to your castle.Ā 

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TOUR WITH PICS:

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View from outside. Nothing fancy - it blends right into the scenery.

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View at the gate and entrance-door right behind it. The gate can be closed via the pullchain, to keep nosy visitors out (like the guy from the government who keeps thinking this is his property after i pay my taxes (Simple Taxes mod).Ā 

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Now we're standing in the foyer, right beyond the entrance. To the right you can see the dining hall, which acts as the central hub in this home. The door ahead leads into a smallĀ courtyard. Not visible on this pic, but to the left is a giant circular staircase to ascend the tower. It will become relevant later. For now lets just enter the dining hall.

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As mentioned in the CONS, everything you see here is statics. There are no storage containers in here, despite it serving as a central hub. It's extremely well navmeshed however and has plenty of idle markers, so at least your followers will be happy.Ā This room works well with MHIYH's breakfast and dinner feature. Now let me show you why the dining hall is a hub: From here you can go to the....

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Space for more books than you'll ever need in small cozy package.

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Also accessable from the dining hall is the Laboratory for alchemy and enchantment.

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And of course the kitchen, which frankly is the least impressive of them all. Yes it's fully functional but looks more an improvised camp. Some furniture and themed containers could easily fix that, but hey i didn't make this.

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Now as mentioned in the CONS, smithing and leatherwork is outside, which makes sense from a realism POV. Unfortunatelly it's also a bitch to reach. Let's go back to the foyer from earlier and let me show you...

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To get to smithing and tanning, you can either climb up this monster of a staircase...

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You you can take the door toĀ the courtyard...

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If we take those stairs up and a few more, we get on top of the castle walls:

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Smithing and tanning. Very unimpressive, isn't it? IMO this is easily the worst part of the mod, along with the sparingly equipped kitchen. On the upside, you have a pretty nice view from up here...

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Anyways, let's check out the best part of this home. The harem.... err, i mean bedrooms. If we return to the dining hall...

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There's another doorway to go downstairs.Ā 

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This home has two seperate sets of bedrooms. The door to the left leads to the master's chambers, which is a seperate cell with 6 follower guestrooms and an oppulent master's suite. We'll go there later. To the right in the above pic you can see a neat little bar downstairs. Unfortunally it too is all statics - no containers, so you can't store drinks here. This is sad because...

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It just like the dining hall is well navmeshed, full of idle markers, and as you can see above my followers really would like to serve drinks. Meh, let's move through this room and we arrive at...

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And underground pool? Yep, and the above picture isn't staged or posed: The pool is full of idle-markersĀ and people using it strip automatically. It can also be turned from a water pool into a blood pool (shrugs). If you look close to the left and right edge of the pic, you can make out two doors. Each of those lead two a set 3 follower guestrooms, for a total of six in the maincell.

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View into the guestrooms. The nice thing about these is: They're part of the main cell of this home, so there's no loadscreen to the dining hall for example. This makes those 6 guestrooms ideal for followers to you sometimes take on quests - or from a roleplay POV followers that guard your home.

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Now let's go to where you've all been waiting for: The master's suite...

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This is the view right after going through the master's suite door. It's a seperate cell called "Safehold Bedrooms". To the left is another group of 6 follower guestrooms.Ā  Since they're in the same cell as the master's - in fact as you can see here right around the corner - they're best used for your bedwarmers. And yes alternate day/night shifts for a total of 12 followers in this cell works perfectly with MHIYH.Ā  Oh right, not visible on this pic, but to the right is also a door to the armory, full of displaycases and manequins. It's a seperate cell. Booring, let's check out the suite instead...

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(Forum Upload limit reached! Guide continued in next post)

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Edited by bastardopfromhell
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View into the master's suite from the door. Plenty of storage here. Well navmeshed and plenty of idle markers. If we look to the right we get the following...

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Nice, isn't it? And what you can't see is there's over a dozen idle-markers in this picture, including the pool. Yes, it also autostrips NPCs using it.Ā 

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And that concludes our tour. In summary it's a really well-done playerhome that's perfect for followers, and just would need a bit of polish in CK to make it the best playerhome in skyrim. At least if you like lore-friendly and comfy yet uncluttered homes that is.

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LINK TO MOD:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/36370

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LINK TO MY BETTER LOOKING WALL/FLOOR TEXTURE:

WRSafeholdBetterWalltex.7z

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Edited by bastardopfromhell
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