help installing mods and how to get them working

[killer90503]

okay so far ive downloaded and installed all the mods I wanted and the required mods for them but I cant seem to get mcm menu or skyui to work it just shows up as regular skyrim menu and settings nothing extra and id also like to say im a complete noob when it comes to modding skyrim I have like no experience except with nmm and I would like to know how I could also get the mods to work through nmm ive tried dragging and dropping the mod folders in but they just show up as downloading and never do anything

[bahamut2119]

You still have to install em when you drag and drop to nmm what's its doing is adding them to nmms installer list. Many here will suggest you don't use nmm but use mod organizer instead and altho I personally still use nmm id also suggest MO however ill help you with nmm a bit. You need to click on a tab named mods near the upper left hand corner now youll either see a category list or a list of the mods you've added to the manager if you see the category list look down the left side at the panel selections click on the last one. What you should see is a list of the mods you want to use with red x's next to em just double click each one one at a time some mods may take awhile to install others will have installer scripts with options for you to pick. Now some mods cannot be installed with nmm but thats rather limited to a small list like skse has to be installed with its own installer or manually. For you ive screen shotted what you should be seeing in nmm pending you haven't touched any of the buttons yet and the selections i mentioned are circled in red minus the 3rd shot which is what you should see but with your own mod list.

 

 

 

 

 

[meltedbytheun]

And as you might know, Skyui requires SKSE. Google and download that, and install it using its instructions. Once that is done, you will no longer be starting Skyrim the traditional way. You will click on the SKSE loader. To make that matter simple, what you should do is go to Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/skyrim and copy the skse_loader.exe file. Now, just copy and paste that to your desktop, and click on that, and it will start skse, which will start skyrim automatically. Once you are in the main menu, open the console prompt using the ` key which is next to the 1 key. Next, you want to type in getskseversion and then hit enter. Then you will see what skse version you have. You should follow that step to make sure skse is installed correctly.

[meltedbytheun]

Heres a really good tip for installing mods from loverslab using the nmm. Go download the free B1 Archiver on google. Once you have that, here is how you use loverslab mods with nmm. What I do is I create a new folder on my desktop. Next, you will want to copy the name of the mod you are downloading, and paste it into the name of the new folder. Now, download the mod, and put it into the folder that you just created. Right click the folder, and click on the B1 Archiver. Next, you will want to select zip, and then click start. Now, you will have a compressed file with the mod. Now, just go to the nmm. Open the mods tab, and look to the left for the icon that looks like a puzzle piece with a + sign on it. Click on that, and just find you mod, click on it, press open, and then you are done. Now, all you have to do is install it the same way you would any other nmm mod.

[killer90503]

You still have to install em when you drag and drop to nmm what's its doing is adding them to nmms installer list. Many here will suggest you don't use nmm but use mod organizer instead and altho I personally still use nmm id also suggest MO however ill help you with nmm a bit. You need to click on a tab named mods near the upper left hand corner now youll either see a category list or a list of the mods you've added to the manager if you see the category list look down the left side at the panel selections click on the last one. What you should see is a list of the mods you want to use with red x's next to em just double click each one one at a time some mods may take awhile to install others will have installer scripts with options for you to pick. Now some mods cannot be installed with nmm but thats rather limited to a small list like skse has to be installed with its own installer or manually. For you ive screen shotted what you should be seeing in nmm pending you haven't touched any of the buttons yet and the selections i mentioned are circled in red minus the 3rd shot which is what you should see but with your own mod list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[killer90503]

okay that helped a bit I tried to put a mod into the nmm mod folder itself and it put the mod into the mod list and I could install it but I could not get it to work in the game skyrim did not crash on start up it ran fine but I think im missing the mcm menu even though I have it installed and supposed to be working but I still cant find it is there some button im supposed to press to get it to work or another mod is needed im not really sure at this point I tried to install some mods manually but that was a bust skyrim kept crashing so what I think I need now is to figure out how to get mcm to work and another question skse will that pop up as skyrim it just skips the loading part you normally get with steam or nmm I can run skse but I think my problem is the mcm menu and installing mods unless I can get mcm to work so I can see if the mod works or not

[bahamut2119]

Sometimes it can take awhile for anything to register in the mcm menu just give it a few minutes altho alternatively you can force it to update by typing in the console setstage ski_configmanagerinstance 1 . What you should see if your starting skyrim right with skse is a black box should pop up in the upper left hand side of your screen it should only be there briefly or at least thats what i see just before skyrim actually starts. if you don't see that then its probably not running you should be starting skyrim from the skse_loader.exe in your main skyrim install folder you can start it also via a edited desktop shortcut also via wire bash if you use that or mod organizer do not start it with steam unless you edit the properties to load it (don't even know if thats possible i use wirebash to control what mods are on and off and for my LO). To edit a desktop shortcut for skyrim to start skse_loader first its simple right click it->properties->change the line that says target to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\skse_loader.exe" or wherever you have skyrim installed.

[Wasps]

Here's step by step instructions how to go about modding Skyrim from the very beginning. Italic text is not essential but worth reading.

 

If you fear you may have already messed up your Skyrim folder by not knowing what you're doing, installing mods manually or been installing shoddy workshop mods and such, go to Steam/SteamApps/Common/Skyrim and delete the Data folder, in Steam, right click TESV: Skyrim. open properties, go to Local Files and click 'Verify Integrity of Game Cache' to bring back the Data files that are part of the vanilla game. As a side note, the Data folder is where all mods (apart from ENBs but forget about those for now) will end up living. 

 

First download and install the following. all can be downloaded as .exe which you just need to run and they'll do their thing (if you decide to reset your Data folder, make sure you install these AFTER doing that):

SKSE

LOOT

Nexus Mod Manager (Once you get more comfortable with modding you may want to consider Mod Organiser; it's a better mod manager but more complex. but stick with NMM for now)

Wyre Bash

 

From this point on, you don't launch Skyrim through steam, but instead using the skse_loader.exe (A desktop shortcut should be generated for it by the SKSE installer)

 

An optional step but a highly recommended one as it will prevent a lot of crashes and freezes. Go to Steam/SteamApps/Common/Skyrim/Data/SKSE, create a text file there, call it SKSE.ini and put the following text in it:

[Display]

iTintTextureResolution=2048

[Memory]

DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB=768

ScrapHeapSizeMB=256

[General]

ClearInvalidRegistrations=1

 

Now you'll be knee deep in NMM for a while downloading and installing your mods MAKE SURE YOU GET ALL DEPENDENCIES FOR YOUR MODS AND THE DEPENDENCIES' DEPENDENCIES, don't worry about the Load Order part of NMM as LOOT's going to handle that for you. When getting mods off Nexus you can click the shiny green download with nexus mod manager button, if downloading a mod off here, save the .7z file somewhere, and click the 'Add file' button that's topleft in NMM and select the .7z file (no need to extract anywhere). When you've downloaded a mod on NMM, you should be able to see it on your modlist (you may need to change tabs at the top or you'll be looking at the load order instead) where they'll have little red Xs next to them, double click them to install, and they'll become green ticks. You could then navigate to your Data folder and see your mods sitting happily in there.

 

A word of advice at this point is to take it slow, it's tempting to install 100 mods in half an hour, but reading each mod page for special instructions (on nexus, it can be worth checking the 'Posts' tab too and reading any stickies) and checking for compatibility patches as you go will save you a loooooot of time in the long run. It's a lot easier to take 5 minutes to read a mod's page in the first place than it is to determine which one of your 100 mods is breaking your game.

 

Got all your mods downloaded and installed? Now's time to run LOOT, at this point it will have a far better idea of what your load order should look like than you do, but once you get more comfortable with your mods and with modding you may notice some mods that could do with being higher up or lower down on the load order (to do that, simply raise or lower their priority on LOOT).

 

Next step: Wyre Bash, which you want for one reason, and one reason only: The Bashed Patch. You should see a new esp at the bottom called 'Bashed Patch.esp', right click it and go 'rebuild patch', follow it along, there are some settings you can tweak and such but leave that for when you know what you're doing. Then make sure the .esp is checked.

 

Give Skyrim a test, see if it loads, don't forget to launch it using SKSE. If it crashes after the logo, don't be surprised; make sure you followed every step and then go back to reading mod pages to make sure there's nothing you missed (such as running the FNIS thingy if you have FNIS).

 

From this point on, it largely depends on choice of mods, good luck.

 

 

[killer90503]

ok skse works perfectly im going to try and track down the tools wasps suggested but a problem is mcm menu I think at this point is my user error Im not sure how to start it up what I mean is the mcm does not show up in the first place even though I installed it through nmm

[Wasps]

Have you definitely got SkyUI installed correctly? It should consist of SkyUI.bsa and SkyUI.esp, both in the Data folder. And is it enabled in your load order? And, as it can't be stressed enough, are you launching the game using the skse_loader.exe?

[killer90503]

yes im running the game with the skse and wow not sure how many times you guys pointed that out I had skyui but never installed it I will install it and try running skse with the mcm installed too and I will check the data folder just to be sure thanks for pointing that out

[killer90503]

okay I have not been able to do much the past day other than look for mods I have skse working but still a problem with skyui and mcm  have downloaded skyui but it did not work with the nmm I start skyrim through skse but it was like skyui did not even install so im gonna get the steam version to see if that will work and if not I will try to install it manually and then see if mcm will work and I was wandering if there is a mod organizer I could use or if I would need one since im doing this through nmm ?