guide Skyrim AE for Beginners - V 3.1.0

[remodel]

Ok, I never figured out what was up with my DynDOLOD errors while trying to play the game and then fix.  After a couple of day's trying, I gave up and just went without it.  Game looks good but not as good with the DynDOLOD; and most importantly I'm not getting those mysterious crashes every few minutes. 

 

The Evanora PC Head tracking voice pack broke after I got to Whiterun.  Checked on the mod page posts and others are having the same Issue I had, just sopped after a while of playing.  Replaced with Ciri's voice packs.  Still tweaking the load order for those but by and large pleased with Ciri so it's beginning to work better and better.

 

Got rid of "Read the room" mod.  I liked it (actually I thought it was great) but it was causing issues with Papyrus getting over loaded with sexlab mods poling in addition.  Made things unstable and induced a couple of crashes. The Sexlab mods were more important to me.

 

On a secondary note: what's up with SLEN.  Won't let Orgies happen no matter my selections.  When I have only 1 follower I get clearing an area and morning surprise; I bet with one follower, dragon deaths would work too.  What's broken?  I saw wollboi's post on the SLEN support page, so I guess I'm not the only one.  Does anybody know?

[xxxstupidfastxxx]

Finished a 1-40 playthrough with this guide and it was incredibly stable for a modlist of around 1900 mods. Did run into a random CTD about once every few hours. Really did seem random (no time/NPC/cell in common). Log decoder seems to think its linked to Occlusion.esp though I believe that is just due to it overriding long chains of ESPs. Other thing could be large amounts of NPCs with physics enabled being a main cause (mostly happened in cities or outdoor cells with a LOT of NPCS).

 

Working through the following small issues then trying out a magic playthrough:

• Fill Her Up caused lots of issues with its deflation animation. This appears to be because it is "storing" items into a common container then restoring them from that common container. This means that for lots of NPCs doing the deflation animations, they all start having all the items in that shared container which on a long term save file causes some CTD issues (due to equiping random items) and really annoying issues like NPCs/follower equiping random gear from other NPCs. Solution is just disabling the animation which kinda sucks
   
• Experience/gameplay balancing. Experience caused levels to go extremely rapidly in the beginning  (making the game really difficult) and then slow at the end (making it extremely easy). Need to tweak its settings to balance this (drop location clearing and discovery to 1exp). Enchant/smith/alchemy in any combo breaks the game still, need to balance new armors added in and play with a rule that disallows item upgrades after a certain point which is unfortunate
   
• Looking for a decent mod that does what aroused creatures does for creatures but with NPC->NPC. Also looking for a better prostitution mod, as Radiant prostitution caused problems and Simple prostitution was functional but only rewarded 1-5 coins and had a 90% rejection rate despite the settings, making it kinda suck
   
• Make sure to update to the latest P+ if you have any SL issues. Its found on their discord below and it fixed a bunch of creature related CTDs and made all SL quite stable. Estrus is currently broken for me though and the latest release doesn't have animation modification in game.
  https://discord.com/invite/mycaxFPSeV/

Currently typing up two addon guides for this one. The first being setting up MCO/Dodge frameworks to work along side this guide. I got both working and playtested through that playthrough, really helps with combat being stale. The second is my companion list, which is extensive. Last playthrough I essentially did a Pokemon style list were I collected ~120 companions from nexus with the rule of needing to do a quest/clear a dungeon with each individually before assigning them to a house. Keeps the followers fresh and I'm parring that list down to a more reasonable number after finding the ones with texture/CTD issues or ones that just didnt look good with this guide. Posting install list, links and notes for all soon. 90% will be ESL and 3BA compatible with the focus on a wide range of looks, styles, and locations.

Edited April 2, 2025 by xxxstupidfastxxx

[Dez65]

5 hours ago, Dez65 said:

she will immediately go into the swimming animation

 

Here's a screenshort of what I'm talking about. 

Spoiler

 

[hardcoremanuel]

1 hour ago, xxxstupidfastxxx said:

• Looking for a decent mod that does what aroused creatures does for creatures but with NPC->NPC. Also looking for a better prostitution mod, as Radiant prostitution caused problems and Simple prostitution was functional but only rewarded 1-5 coins and had a 90% rejection rate despite the settings, making it kinda suck

In Simple Prostitution if you are only getting 1-5 coins its probably because your character is begging. To be a prostitute you have to get permission from an innkeeper and then you should get more coins. Raise "Persuasion Chance" to get rejected less.

[SirusRobomage]

22 hours ago, wollboi said:

You don't need to do that. I hit that problem too. One of the downloads provides an esp, the other an esl. Or maybe it's a FOMOD choice, but you can definitely get an esp plugin.

I'm being hit with something concerning there, because the Markynaz Bodyslide patch wants the esl, but the Markynaz Immersive Sound Compendium wants the esp. What should I be doing here?

[wollboi]

@Dez65 Mine does the exact same thing. It's on my list of shit to figure out. It's supposed to be random but it only does that one.

 

@SirusRobomage Hmm, I don't remember that. Check all of the downloads on the Markynaz page. You can click "Preview File Contents" and look for the one that features .esp or .esl. I only remember running into one mod that required the .esp, not two.

[remodel]

7 hours ago, xxxstupidfastxxx said:

Simple prostitution was functional but only rewarded 1-5 coins and had a 90% rejection rate despite the settings, making it kinda suck

At first it does but seems to pick up, like your gaining experience.  I'm getting around 30+ consistently now, it'll increase more.  When first starting, I was getting just a few.  Mod states on download page, " The payment that you could receive increases based on your Speech skill."  Also I'm I'm not getting many rejections now.  

 

I use the mod "The Eloquent Reader" - True Scholar SE Edition - Increase speech by reading book.  This helps with speech skill, and thus increased prostitution pay.  Also, just like life the more you read the better your conversational skill - that's how I justify it.

 

I also use SexLab Sexual Fame with SLSF reloaded.  Constantly getting approached for prostitution now.  When starting nobody approached.  Be warned about SLSF, it comes with a wheel menu that can insert itself into the game.  I haven't figured out how to disable the thing yet.  The comments are hilarious.

 

These three mods together makes for a decent prostitution game play.  You can also add to this with Public Whore (PW); you have to neuter all the bad effects or it can quickly become the only game overwhelming everything else.  Once neutered it plays well.  PW is a little buggy with guards approaching you about the service when your supposed to be in a cool down period.  I just tab out of the conversation and nothing happens.  If you're to be on duty though, you will be fetched up and put in a yoke.  Also with PW if the location of the punishing Jarl is changed from vanilla the mod breaks.  Winterhold and Falkreath mods in the list will break it.  JK's blue Palace and the understone keep are fine.

 

7 hours ago, xxxstupidfastxxx said:

Fill Her Up caused lots of issues with its deflation animation.

I totally agree.  Followers get stuck in that position all the time.  I'll disable the animation, thanks.  If I wasn't so far into the game I'd disable it.

Edited April 3, 2025 by remodel

[Aylis]

2 hours ago, SirusRobomage said:

I'm being hit with something concerning there, because the Markynaz Bodyslide patch wants the esl, but the Markynaz Immersive Sound Compendium wants the esp. What should I be doing here?

If i remember correctly the ESP is in a subfolder of the armor.

[SirusRobomage]

7 hours ago, Aylis said:

If i remember correctly the ESP is in a subfolder of the armor.

Not what I mean. The mods seem to be asking for BOTH the esl and esp. esp for the bodyslide, esl for the Immersive Sound Compendium. I know about the esp being in the optional folder. Am I supposed to use both of these to satisfy requirements? Do I ignore one of these?

[Aylis]

This is what i use.

And no complaints about missing files or so...

 

I think I created the bodyslides with the ESP and then removed it. The meshes are the same anyway,

Edited April 3, 2025 by Aylis

[Dez65]

13 hours ago, wollboi said:

Mine does the exact same thing. It's on my list of shit to figure out. It's supposed to be random but it only does that one.

 

I didn't explain my issue clearly enough.  I wasn't referring to the randomness of the swim animation, although it's true that the only animation that ever seems to play is from https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/61160.  My issue is that the PC starts the swimming animation as soon as she touches water, regardless of whether its deep enough to swim or only requires wading.  Then, the swim animation has the PC hovering well above the water.

 

Your advice, though, led me to disable Random Swimming animations (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/92951).  I've never had this issue before and that's one of two swimming animation mods I added from the list.  The other being Stronger Swimming Animations.  (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/32625).

 

Thanks for getting back to me!

[SirusRobomage]

I found an updated bodyslide mod that used the ESL, so that problem went away.

 

However, i'm running into a multi-pronged set of issues with Wrye Bash, preventing me from making the Bashed Patch at all. First off, it's telling me to disable the soup AIO and Vaermina's Torpor before trying to bash. Which is odd.

 

Then i'm told to disable Wet and Cold to avoid a crash, which is still really weird.

 

But now, when I think i'm gonna actually BUILD the patch, I get the following crash, and the bash fails every time:

 

 

[wollboi]

Just now, Dez65 said:

I didn't explain my issue clearly enough.  I wasn't referring to the randomness of the swim animation, although it's true that the only animation that ever seems to play is from https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/61160.  My issue is that the PC starts the swimming animation as soon as she touches water, regardless of whether its deep enough to swim or only requires wading.  Then, the swim animation has the PC hovering well above the water.

 

Your advice, though, led me to disable Random Swimming animations (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/92951).  I've never had this issue before and that's one of two swimming animation mods I added from the list.  The other being Stronger Swimming Animations.  (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/32625).

 

Thanks for getting back to me!

No, you were clear. I was just also throwing my hat into the "something is off with the swimming animations" bucket. If anyone else's has been working fine then I'd say it's entirely possible it isn't just me. (I had to reinstall the list (and then later switched to PI-CHO and Azurite II) and am chasing some bugs and it's low on my priority list)

[xxxstupidfastxxx]

13 hours ago, remodel said:

At first it does but seems to pick up, like your gaining experience.  I'm getting around 30+ consistently now, it'll increase more.  When first starting, I was getting just a few.  Mod states on download page, " The payment that you could receive increases based on your Speech skill."  Also I'm I'm not getting many rejections now.  

 

I use the mod "The Eloquent Reader" - True Scholar SE Edition - Increase speech by reading book.  This helps with speech skill, and thus increased prostitution pay.  Also, just like life the more you read the better your conversational skill - that's how I justify it.

 

I also use SexLab Sexual Fame with SLSF reloaded.  Constantly getting approached for prostitution now.  When starting nobody approached.  Be warned about SLSF, it comes with a wheel menu that can insert itself into the game.  I haven't figured out how to disable the thing yet.  The comments are hilarious.

 

These three mods together makes for a decent prostitution game play.  You can also add to this with Public Whore (PW); you have to neuter all the bad effects or it can quickly become the only game overwhelming everything else.  Once neutered it plays well.  PW is a little buggy with guards approaching you about the service when your supposed to be in a cool down period.  I just tab out of the conversation and nothing happens.  If you're to be on duty though, you will be fetched up and put in a yoke.  Also with PW if the location of the punishing Jarl is changed from vanilla the mod breaks.  Winterhold and Falkreath mods in the list will break it.  JK's blue Palace and the understone keep are fine.

 

I totally agree.  Followers get stuck in that position all the time.  I'll disable the animation, thanks.  If I wasn't so far into the game I'd disable it.

 

So thats whats odd. I got permission in Inn, set the MCM config to max gold and chance, and had a 80 speech (by end of playthrough). Only thing that worked was setting dibella's marks to 100% so I got something other than 5 coins. Other issue I had with it was Excuse me... loading in late(even with their patch) and re-ordering the speech selection which was really annoying when chatting with NPCs. That being said from looking there isn't a good lightweight solution out there so ill try it again

 

For Fill Her Up there really just needs to be a PC only selector for some of the features as they break followers pretty badly.

 

Still think its weird theres not NPC->NPC aroused approach like aroused creature. Only completely random or only PC.

 

Oh one last one, for both Fertility and SGO4I I have been forced to disable both of them. This is because they set scale and weight changes permanently which accumulate, so mid-late game all the NPCs are max weight which looks really terrible for some depending on how their bodyscale is setup. You can fix via console but its a massive pain. I wish there was a way to have the features but only have it change the belly nif for a short time without all the extra changes (and with the option to totally revert after pregnancy).

 

Kicking off a stealth mage playthrough, also new flavor of P+ is out with fixes for most of the quests on LL! Ingame UI for animations still WIP though 

[Dez65]

1 hour ago, wollboi said:

No, you were clear.

Then that's a first!  😄

 

I'll let you know if the problem recurs with some of the swimming animation mods disabled.

 

I saw elsewhere that this could be a physics issue related to not clamping the frame rate to 60.  I'm doubtful as my display settings from SSE Display Tweaks have not changed from prior modlists and I've never had this strange issue before.  Also, I'm using PureDark's upscaler, which, per his instructions, requires that frame rate be capped to 72 for a 144hz monitor.  I really don't want to lose the benefit of either the upscaler or the monitor.

[Dez65]

20 hours ago, hardcoremanuel said:

Also looking for a better prostitution mod

I still like TDF Prostitution upgraded with TDF Enhanced Prostitution 2.4.1.   The latter was just updated last year and works well with Aylis' modlist, augmented by Sexlab Sexual Fame Framework and Comments.  

 

 

[SirusRobomage]

7 hours ago, SirusRobomage said:

I found an updated bodyslide mod that used the ESL, so that problem went away.

 

However, i'm running into a multi-pronged set of issues with Wrye Bash, preventing me from making the Bashed Patch at all. First off, it's telling me to disable the soup AIO and Vaermina's Torpor before trying to bash. Which is odd.

 

Then i'm told to disable Wet and Cold to avoid a crash, which is still really weird.

 

But now, when I think i'm gonna actually BUILD the patch, I get the following crash, and the bash fails every time:

 

 

Adding on here, I had to disable wraithguardvaultfixer to get the bashed patch to generate at all. What's worse is that it seems that somewhere towards the end of the mod guide building, PapyrusUtil got broken, or...maybe overwritten with the wrong version. Yeah, that's what it is.

 

SexLabFramework has it's own papyrusutil DLL overwrite that overtakes the earlier PapyrusUtil dll. Should I hide the old PapyrusUtil.dll inside of SL Framework?

[_Warhawk_]

3 hours ago, SirusRobomage said:

Adding on here, I had to disable wraithguardvaultfixer to get the bashed patch to generate at all. What's worse is that it seems that somewhere towards the end of the mod guide building, PapyrusUtil got broken, or...maybe overwritten with the wrong version. Yeah, that's what it is.

 

SexLabFramework has it's own papyrusutil DLL overwrite that overtakes the earlier PapyrusUtil dll. Should I hide the old PapyrusUtil.dll inside of SL Framework?

I believe the rule of thumb is to never allow PapyrusUtil to get overwritten at all. There are some older mods that have a specific version of the dll that is out of date which causes issues. Campfire and some knock mods are two ones I know of. Some people like to keep papyrusutil very low in their load order for that reason or just hide any PapyrusUtil.dll that is from another mod.

Edited April 4, 2025 by _Warhawk_
typo

[Dez65]

Grass from my seasonal grass cache looks great everywhere except the stairs leading up to the Jarl's Keep from COTN - Falkreath.  See spoiler.  

 

Anyone know if this a load order thing or did I do something wrong when I ran the precache?

 

Spoiler

 

[SirusRobomage]

Next problem. I'm running my way through the MCM menus to try and get things right, and i'm noticing that if the PC sprints, the exasperated panting and gasping noises don't stop, ever. Not even when stamina is fully recovered. That's not right, but i'm unsure how to tend to this problem.

 

Additionally, Aroused Creatures is telling me there's no animations and that I need to go into Sexlab MCM, turn on Sexlab and activate Creature Animations. It's already on, and the checkbox is set. But...it doesn't seem to matter, SLAC is refusing to cooperate.

Edited April 4, 2025 by SirusRobomage

[Dez65]

Can't seem to trigger the Saarthal quest in At Your Own Pace College of Winterhold.  Have asked him for more lessons on wards and also what is happening that's interesting and the new quest does not trigger.  Have At Your Own Pace - College Quest Expansion Patch installed in the order in the modlist, although it loads lower than At Your Own Pace - College of Winterhold.esp because that mod is its master.

 

I went to Winterhold immediately without going to Farengar first.  Think that screwed up the questline?

 

Thanks for any suggestions!

[PubliusNV]

7 hours ago, Dez65 said:

Can't seem to trigger the Saarthal quest in At Your Own Pace College of Winterhold. 

 

Did you install "College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion"? That adds 7 short quests you have to do, one for each school of magic, before you can do Saarthal.

[Guest]

Any suggestions why dialogue options stop appearing.  Seeing this in two different mods. Eager NPCs and Remiel.  Example:  Remi asks if she can keep scrap after the intial exchange, the option to reply is no longer there.  All I see is the ghosted out original dialogue.  Reload and save does not correct this.  Curious as I've not seen this before and don't know how to check for conflicts.  I'm afraid its the corrupted game issue but otherwise everything is working fine.  

 

Any thoughts are appreciated.

[KCOLL]

i had dialogue issues when trying to run sexlab p+ and eager npc . i reverted back to pure sexlab. just seem to have no luck running p+ 

Edited April 6, 2025 by KCOLL

[CaptainFexis]

Why are there only three 1st person combat animation mod -which would be twohand-greatsword-magic- in the list, can I add more mod on my own or replace them with something more encompassing...? It feels like bows and 1h w/shield (or not) left out. Thanks.