Uglykidcid's Abodes-Hideouts-Player Homes Blob(er Blog)

[uglykidcid]

I spent a great length of time (20 hours) trying to get the lighting correct and I failed!!!!.  I did improve it though.  The original mod has a number of blinking issues and I am trying to resolve them all.  It's not easy and my basement has them too.  When and if I finish that I will move on to nav meshes.  I also added General Stores which is a requirement.

[Mookeylama]

thanks for your work here and on Rayek's. but much thanks for the link to the fixed version of Eagle's Nest! didn't know it existed

[R246]

Regarding Rayek's End, are you fixing the few glitches in the original (like the entrance being follower unfriendly, and the modified vanilla activator that breaks water in various locations)? The layout and atmosphere in Rayek's End is just so awesome but the glitches in the original prevent me from installing it.

[uglykidcid]

Yes I am trying to fix all the bugs.  It took me hours just to fix the lighting.  I am going to build the display stands next for all the various unique items.  I will take care of the nav meshes last as they will suck!  For example the companions lean in the wall not against it.

[the_mess]

Damn! I didn't know about Eagles' Nest being bugged! I've been playing with this mod for so long by now Did I screwed my save with it?

[uglykidcid]

I am not sure what the long term effects are of a deleted nav mesh but it's not a script so the impact is probably minimal.  CK has a normalizing function that should fix it.  Or you can run the GS version.

[clockworkmurderer]

I can hardly believe that Aemers Refuge Continued didn't make your list! It is and has been my favorite house mod for at least a year, and that's only because I didn't know about it before that. It has a great trophy vault that displays basically any trophy you can think of including dragon claws, Black Books and special weapons, plus a linked auto sorting container system that supports linked crafting, all accessible through a summonable personal assistant. Not only that, but it includes magically hidden secret doors to all the vanilla/dawnguard/dragonborn player homes, high hrothgar, the dark brotherhood sanctuaries, and the thieves guild. And all of that without mentioning just how polished the look and feel of the whole place is. My only complaints would be a relatively long loading screen and a minor FPS hit inside. I recommend it to any Skyrim PC player.

[Rayblue]

Sounds more like an uber house.

[uglykidcid]

Thanks Skyler I had not heard of that one.  I will check it out

[clockworkmurderer]

Please do. I forgot to mention that it has a mountainside balcony with a dragon encounter that works very nicely as a dock for the Dev Aveza! 

[SquallPT]

Bathing Beauties not recommended ? Almost punched my monitor screen when i read that :/

It's my favorite mod.

[uglykidcid]

Well squal if you read my entire blog you will note that I clearly state that every mod I test is a top quality mod.  I am not testing junk here at all.  If you build your game around that mod it's fine.  What you can't expect is to have a heavily modified game like me and throw that in as a side mod.  You should also keep in mind that BB is an older mod and has a ton of compatibility issues with newer mods.  So if it's your center piece mod by all means go ahead it's a good mod.  On the other hand, if you plan on running 100 gig Skyrim and full STEP don't do it.

[Jazzby]

I know this isn't my thread, but personally I would highly recommend the following from my own select faves:

 

The Dawnspire: Does about everything you need and want, and it's really cool, but it has some problems. Hasn't been updated in forever, and is reported to have some kind of Dragon Priest Mask Bust bug or something. But, try it I guess.

 

Paradise Valley and Underground Bathhouse: To me this has always been like a really enhanced and much more stable version of BBLS. The entrance to the exterior cell of Paradise Valley is a short walk down the road from Whiterun, and the exterior and interior of the bathhouse is pretty well done too. The only issues I'd bring up:

1. Your computer may suffer if you use the all in one interior cell version(this is from an older version though, haven't played in a while, not sure if everything's been changed). There's an alternate set of .esp files that separates all major interior cells, so it's a lot more manageable.

2. The mod does contain blatant cheat items/functions that are completely optional, just don't use them if you don't like them.

 

Dorn Heven: I always get the names Dorn Heven and Deus Mons confused. Dorn Heven is a pretty underrated mod in my opinion, though I have less personal experience with it than the above two. It's really flashy in its own way, and is amazingly creative.

 

 

I'll remove the links and stuff if you want I guess. Also, two others things. I've never had a problem with Halls of the Dovahndor beyond it's just TOO damn big and so sometimes laggy, but otherwise really cool, and about your Evil Lair of the Hydra listing: I'm not trying to control your top list or anything, but while talking with other people that regularly mod their game before I've been told that Lair of the Hydra is buggy as hell to a game breaking point because of unclean scripts. That coupled with the fact that all it really is is a cave home with tons of clones of the various ingame women and some modded in female gods/daedra makes it pretty undesirable in general, especially since some mods can pull the whole 'harem' thing off a lot better while being far more stable(ie, Paradise Valley and UB has the option to just ask followers, and I think even just random people, to live in it and has plenty of space and beds, whether you want a harem or a crew or whatever).

 

To be honest, if I REALLY wanted to, and had access to my other desktop that has my Skyrim mod collection at the moment, I could probably skim my "Player Bases" folder, look up some of them, and give a pretty good list of enjoyable and good-to-high quality homes/castles/etc.

[uglykidcid]

Actually thank you I appreciate your input.  My goal was to have a discussion about housing because I could not find a house I really liked so please add more if you like.  I actually go back and test every house that gets mentioned I just haven't had time to update.

[Jazzby]

Okay. Thanks. A little update about Dawnspire, just my thoughts since I already linked to it: My only beef with it is that the mod itself hasn't been updated in a pretty long time, even though the creator stated he wants to. That's fine and all, real life gets in the way, and sometimes people get disinterested. The main thing to bring up is that I skimmed the comments recently and vaguely recall that some users were complaining about a specific bug with the DP mask busts.

 

Otherwise, however, despite being outdated, it's one of my own top favorites. It does most of what you'd want it to for a house, but you're better off not using it as your staple if you don't completely trust the automatic sorting system and are wary of the bug claims from users.

 

And speaking of BBLS, I agree with your verdict as a player that's personally used it extensively before. This was before I discovered how superior Paradise Valley was becoming, with the updates at the time surpassing BBLS's quality to me. iirc there's Thornrock, which is a pretty simple player home that occupies the same space as BBLS. It's also worth a look, and for that particular spot I'd recommend Thornrock more than it.

 

I still need to get access to my other desktop back, but once I do, and I should soon, I can go ahead and work through my older player base collection while updating it with newer mods and provide a pretty lengthy list of useful options.

[Sacremas]

Throwing in my support with Underground Bathouse and Paradise Valley, it has some ugly cheat features (endless supply of ingots, chest with 50.000 gold, slippers with +5000 or something carry weight) but all of it is highly optional, only thing I don't like is that the crafting room which otherwise links awesomely to the various stations doesnt' link leather to tempering bench and doesn't link special smithing where you'd put your dragon items to anything. Also if you fill it up with all your beautfied NPCs from various mods like Bijin Warmaidens and NPC overhauls the lag becomes HORRIBLE, same really if you go with original residents with unique bodies, and the alternative is a huge bathouse harem filled with ugly people. I've managed to shave some of the lag off by separating the dark area and crafting area into their own esps. I would prefer a redone version with multiple rooms and the various features like tapestries incorporated into the main mod of course but I don't know how to do that. have never crashed inside the Bathouse, and I've been able to do scripted scenes between companions and sex scenes just fine inside it. I also love that it includes things like asking your spouse to move in with you whereas they will take advantage of the master bedroom, plays really well with a mod like Lover's Comfort then.

 

Another mod you should check out; Jaggersfeldt, this is a very nice house mod, the actual house is fairly modest despite being placed inside it's own world area, but the cool part is the enormous trophy hall with spaces for dawnguard, dragonborn and vanilla items to be displayed everywhere. I'm leaving a link to Gopher's review of the mod so you can see easily. It's a really cool house mod.

 

 

 

EDIT: I just found something funny in Jaggersfeldt obviously added after the above video, there's a hidden alcove in the main forest area that if you get up into you find an ancient nord helmet and a note saying not to trust "vampiric gophers", that ancient nord helmet was what Gopher's vampire orc mage character was wearing when he did his Let's Play using that house.

[Sacremas]

I tested out Aemer's refuge, it was nice but had a number of issues I didn't like, it was incompatible with any changes to vanilla homes like Breezehome fully upgradable as well as Thunderchild and Immersive College of Winterhold, and if you can fly there's several doors on platforms that look like you can get to but they're not openable, and if you drop down into Blackreach (very cool feature) then if you can fly there's no way to get back into Aemer's the same way. The auto sorter has the same issue as any other auto sorter, it doesn't like any mod-added equipment and I'm walking around with almost nothing but. Plus the layout of the castle was just confusing, I spent more time wandering around trying to find out where everything was than anything else. All in all it's a pretty cool castle type home, much much better than Deus Mons, but not for me.

[Sacremas]

So here's a house that might be worth checking out, a fully animated and heavily scripted house that looks to be made to be lived in as opposed to looked at. Haven't tried it out yet. Bonus points for being compatible with UNP, SOS and Frostfall already.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62903/?

[uglykidcid]

Already tried it I just haven't had time to write about it.  The house is exactly as he says fully animated.  It's really kind of neat.  BUT...it plays havoc with mods that auto equip like devious devices, portable backpack, etc.  The actually house was small unless there was a bigger portion I missed.  I prefer small but it's really out of the way.  One of my favorites, Elianora's tree house Elisdriel, is amazing but you would never find it early on in the game.  Rayek's End and Legend of the Eagle's Nest GS are great because you can find them when you first start playing.  So to me the animations are great but the house is inconvenient.

[uglykidcid]

Well folks I finally got around to working on the house mod.  There is a hidden treasure room behind the bed.  Look for the rune on the wall.

[Old Book]

I'm a fan of Ahondra's Mt Peril, Icicle Valley, and Ol Arrow Knee. 

None of them, as homes, are gorgeous. They don't give me that Elianora feeling. And they lack auto storage, which is a drawback. But, on the plus side, they all have fun quests to win the homes, custom loot and spells won by violence, live-in merchants, and teleport spells to get back to the homes so that you don't forget you own them. Icicle Valley and Ol Arrow Knee in particular have pretty full quest lines even after you own the places.

 

My favorite recently released home is Stratos. A flying Dwemer fortress with a solid fight to earn it, recall spell, great looking interior, custom features, and a very well done fully voiced follower. The dialog is both lore friendly and funny, a tough combination to manage.  
 

I'm not a big fan of free houses, or houses that give you a ton of stuff that doesn't feel earned. I can appreciate how great some of them look (The Dark Tower was in my load order for a long time), but they don't generally hold my interest.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27646/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27646/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34416/?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/63582/?

[Sacremas]

Thanks for the updated and bugfixed version of the Underrground Bathouse!

[cripptonite]

What about the other version, A Classier BB Luxury Suite by RIP88?  Is it the same, or does it work better?

[karlpaws]

Looks like this might be a place to drop in a question I've had....

 

 

are there any house mods that use the Jarl's house in Falkreath, Morthal, Dawnstar and Winterhold as a basis?  I like the layout, and they seem to have enough space.  Just need a basement or maybe external area for crafting.

 

I had the thought that if someone was ambitious and skilled, they could be swapped with the Hearthfire houses. At least internally.  Use the initial small house, until you build the main part, and then when the main part is built and complete, use the whole jarl house instead.  Would just need to copy the contents of the small house containers over first, I guess. Or just not use the small house part at all.

[Sacremas]

What about the other version, A Classier BB Luxury Suite by RIP88?  Is it the same, or does it work better?

 

A Classier is simply texture replacers, they do not fix the bugs and the problems that the BBLS puts on NPCs, it modifies NPC behaviour in an ugly way to make them viable visitors to the Luxury Suite. Use Underground Bathouse instead, much safer and better looking.