Skyrim Modding Guide

[Sacremas]

A preview of my upcoming quest review;

 

 

That's not a troll. Or a sweetroll. It is of course a Sweettroll.

[Mimirue17]

have to say SkyTweek is pretty amazing tool, glad you pointed this out.   Can help game balace, by making the mobs tougher.   Guess you could use it to cheat, but whats the fun in that.

 

Also Bijin Warmaidens does a great job with a little tweek.  Replaced the body textures to a much more pleasing cbbe update (they are still using 2.9).   Lydia looks better then ever

 

 

do have a havoc or HDT (guess they are the same thing?)  I seem to be getting havoc effects around the female bodies, both mine and followers.   When I went to meet the Jarl in Whiterun after retrieving the dragonstone, all the items upstairs exploded away from me (books, vases etc).   I have also noticed alot of breast and butt twitching while indoors.   I have reinstalled HDT Physics extension and moved it around in load order but still get that effect.   Not all the time but enough to be kind of annoying.   Any ideas what could cause this?

[Sacremas]

I haven't used HDT/Havoc enough to know what that might be, I'm just using the patch uglykidcid posted in this topic and they work well.

 

Also I'm working with Bijin Warmaidens author now to make a patch that will update the UNP version to UNPB as well as put various muscle maps on the girls (tigersan on Utgerdt, Battle Hardened on Lydia, Sporty Sexy on Mjoll) as well as make a updated USKP, and USKP + Requiem patch. Just waiting to hear from the owners of the various muscle maps I want to use for permission.

 

EDIT: Clarification, if I get permission for that specific body I want to use both Bijin Warmaidens and Seranaholic will be set up for Sexlab preganancy so you can get children with your chosen Warmaiden, be it a dhampir with Serana or a puppy with Aela.

 

While at it I'm going to do my best in solving Aela's issue with turning invisible as a werewolf. No promises at all, far more experienced folks than me have tried and failed, and there's a very good chance she'll even end up looking different than Bijin to make it happen (I think it has something to do with the custom textures used, no idea, I want to try to get rid of custom textures/body and use default).

[Sacremas]

Yeah I stopped playing Brhuce Hammar completely, I found out I really really didn't like it, it just broke my immersion way too much constantly. It wasn't the spells that cast trains at people, it wasn't that you could tell Brhuce not to be overpowered (because he wasn't, compared to my DovahGod he was quite a bit underpowered, he claimed to have impenetrable defensive systems but I one-shotted him on an accidental cast, the fearsome and near invincible Brhucebot was likewise pathetic) it wasn't the fort built out of elder scrolls, it wasn't the swettroll even, and "I've had a massive erection since we entered this ruin" was actually appropriate somewhat as his Arousal was high... it was Brhuce commenting in Whiterun "If you ever make a mod and can't think of where to put it, just plunk it down in Whiterun, it's the Balmorra of Skyrim." Sorry at that point I just say fuck it, I don't want your giant robot figthing Khaiju, I don't want your mechanical horse, your fortess was utter crap and as for the Daedric Realms I made much better demonic realms mod for Duke Nukem 3D in it's creation kit in 1996 that even though I made it in 20 minutes for the sole purpose of killing rooms and rooms of demons it was more immersive and complete than this.

 

I still haven't uninstalled same author's World Eater Beater or Wheels of Lull, especially since Wheels won best quest mod of last year and looks quite professional, I'm just hoping the author was stoned out of his mind and just playing around in the creation kit when he made Brhuce Hammar Legacy. But what the fuck was I expecting from the author who replaced the dragons of Skyrim with Thomas the Steam Engine trains?

[Sacremas]

Okay some advice on what to look for when evaluating mods.

 

If it's a Nexus mod you want to look at the endorsements, if people took the time to endorse the mod which requires extra effort (I don't do it nearly as much as I should) then it can only be because they really enjoyed that mod. Second, open the comments section, look what people are saying, and how they are reacting to the mod, if there's a lot of cries about bugs and the mod ruining their save then you should likely look elsewhere. Truth is very few mods can actually "ruin" a save thanks the clearinvalidregstrations=1 skse.ini line which allows you to uninstall even scripted mods. More importantly look at what the modders themselves are saying, how they're replying and posting, and how their description is. If a modder can't be bothered to post a proper description of their mod, then they probably didn't spend much effort on the mod itself, and you should stay away from it. If the modder is actively attacking people who are asking questions, then it's just more of a reason to stay away. Modders infamous for attacking and lashing out and making fun of people asking reasonable questions and not giving them their unwavering support include ApolloDown, EnaiSiaon, Humannature66, T3nd0, Kendo 2, Anduniel, and several more. Despite this I'm using mods from all the people I mentioned to one degree or another (less so with ApolloDown's mods due to their noted instabilities and likelyhood to cause save game bloat), but you should be careful about them. It may be just artist's temper flaring up, or even fatigue from having been asked too many asinine questions, but just like they don't have to keep modding for you, you don't have to support their mods. If you do however, then look for that mod in particular if it contains scripts or the like, and test it on your own to make sure it's not going to hurt your game.

 

Another thing to look for is how the mod is set up, if the file structure contains obvious faults, or if it doesn't even have a proper file structure with the modder posting "no install through mod managers, manual install only!!!111!!" then it likely just means they're too fucking lazy to set up a proper mod in the correct file structure, which takes like 2 seconds. You can fix this easily in Mod Organizer when installing by choosing the Manual option, then creating the correct file paths like "Meshes" and in that "Actors" then "character" then "female" and so on if you're trying to install something for the female body or face. If you're inexperienced however and the modder didn't at least tell you where to put the file, leave it alone and find another mod to install.

 

And I don't care who it is that tells you to install something manually because managers do not work, they are fuckign idiots and you should not listen to them, the only time you should install something manually is if it goes in any other directory than the Data folder, even SKSE plugins should be installed through your manager, only files that you manually install is the SKSE install and your ENB install, speciifcally the ENBSeries files, in RealVision's case you can install everything else through your mod manager of choice, with virtually any other ENB however you have to install the files manually. If the ENB contains any files that go in the Data folder however then add that Data folder to a rar file with the name of that ENB and install it through your manager. The only exception to these things is if it's a mod that you're going to keep FOREVER, most likely because you made it yourself... but in that case you are probably not reading this guide.

[Mimirue17]

I haven't used HDT/Havoc enough to know what that might be, I'm just using the patch uglykidcid posted in this topic and they work well.

 

Also I'm working with Bijin Warmaidens author now to make a patch that will update the UNP version to UNPB as well as put various muscle maps on the girls (tigersan on Utgerdt, Battle Hardened on Lydia, Sporty Sexy on Mjoll) as well as make a updated USKP, and USKP + Requiem patch. Just waiting to hear from the owners of the various muscle maps I want to use for permission.

 

EDIT: Clarification, if I get permission for that specific body I want to use both Bijin Warmaidens and Seranaholic will be set up for Sexlab preganancy so you can get children with your chosen Warmaiden, be it a dhampir with Serana or a puppy with Aela.

 

While at it I'm going to do my best in solving Aela's issue with turning invisible as a werewolf. No promises at all, far more experienced folks than me have tried and failed, and there's a very good chance she'll even end up looking different than Bijin to make it happen (I think it has something to do with the custom textures used, no idea, I want to try to get rid of custom textures/body and use default).

Bijin is really awesome for the face and hair, but the textures and meshes they use for the bodies are lacking.   when replaced with much better options the results are damn amazing.

 

 

These are with CBBE meshes and textures along with CBBE Fitness body and Sporty Sexy sweat.   Since each npc is in their own folder you can choose what you want to replace.   For example the new file they put out, Bijin Wives, none of them will get the fitness body as they are all town folk.  Fixed up they are very sexy indeed.

[Sacremas]

Yeah I know, that's how I'm doing it, here's the changes that will be;

 

All - UNPB-TSPB (By Bl3saro, allows them to be pregnant, uglykidcid meanwhile have done replacers for all vanilla gear and a fukton of extra clothing as well as some of Immersive Armors for this body that allows them to show pregnancy in for example Aela's Ancient Nord armor)

Adeleisa - Sporty Sexy Map

Aela - Battle Hardened Map

Anekke - Battle Hardened Map

Borgarkh - Tigersan UNPCoversion with Hardcore Abs

Delphine - Battle Hardened Map

Eola - Battle Hardened Map

Frea - Sporty Sexy Map

Ingjard - Battle Hardened

Iona - Battle Hardened

Jeneassa - Battle Hardened

Jordis - Battle Hardened

Lydia - Sporty Sexy

Mjoll - Sporty Sexy

Njada - Sporty Sexy

Rayya - Sporty Sexy

Ria - Battle Hardened

Uthgerd - Tigersan UNPCoversion with Hardcore Abs

I might make a CBBE version as well but I don't use that body so would be slightly difficult looking them up ingame how they look... I'll see if I get to it. As you've seen it's not that hard on your own, I'll be posting a brief guide as well with the mod on how to do it yourself if you disagree with my choices.

 

Here's the bodies I'd use;

 

Tigersan UNP Coversion with Hardcore Abs (at least I think this is it, it's very similar);

 

 

 

Sporty Sexy Map (you know this one)

 

 

And Battle Hardened Map, which is just basically a little extra toning and what's used for most of them;

 

 

Reason I like UNPB is because you can look at the Sporty Sexy or Tigersan image and at the Battle Hardened image, all of those are UNP bodies and women with both slim bodies and breasts larger than most CBBE can pull off will be in the game and fitting all your installed armors, so you might get a weight 20 high elf and a weight 100 nord and have them be shaped completely different, but both can use the same armor without it deforming them.

[Skippe]

sporty sexy and battle hardened looked really good i must say georgeous i wouldnt mind have hardcore to be my travellin companion either oh that sensous relaxin at wilds and those comfy nights lookin at stars thanks for tips sacremas they helped me to get my mods work more stable tought i sometimes get random crashes but thats what bethsada incidentally left at skyrim engine if i have understand it correctly im not modder so cant know for sure

 

[Sacremas]

Okay here's some Optimization tricks that I just learned from uglykidcid;

 

Mod Organzier reads BSA archives slower than it does loose files, so it's always better to have Loose instead of BSA, whenever installing a mod and it offers you the option choose Loose. However here's how to make your existing BSA's loose;

 

First off follow This guide from the STEP program, and use one of the programs mentioned there (I used BSAopt) and extract your Dawnguard.bsa, Heartfires.bsa and Dragonborn.bsa as well as your Skyrim - Textures.bsa. After this move the BSA files somewhere safe out of the Data folder in case you'll need them again.

 

Next you want to go to Mod Organizer to the Archives tab, you'll get a list of what other BSA archives you have from your other mods. If you have a lot of them like I did here's what you're going to do; go into Options (the Wrench+Screwdriver symbol) head over to Plugins, click BSA Extractor, double click Enabled - False and change it to True. Now find the first mod on your list that has a BSA and reinstall it, even if it means redownloading it (take this opportunity to find updates to your mods, I found an Interesting NPCs update I didn't have). Now when they reinstall (choose Replace) you'll at the end get a question if you want to extract the BSA archives. Choose yes, and mark that it should remember this choice. Now do the same on all of the rest. The BSA's will be gone and you'll get harmless messages that MO can't find the BSA's anymore. Go through the entire list so the only BSA archives you have left is the "Skyrim -" ones who didn't end in Textures.

 

Now when you start up the game it might take a little bit longer than normal until the game starts, this is fine, in-game it will run better and you'll get better FPS than otherwise. You also have a much less chance of NPCs ending up with black faces or missing skin textures.

[halieslade]

 

More importantly look at what the modders themselves are saying, how they're replying and posting, and how their description is. If a modder can't be bothered to post a proper description of their mod, then they probably didn't spend much effort on the mod itself, and you should stay away from it.

 

This can't be emphasized enough.  You can learn an awful lot about a mod by looking at the modder's habits and behavior.  I've declined installing many mods just because there was a crappy description or insufficient explanation of what it does.  And while I've given plenty of Japanese modders a pass due to language, it's funny how the best ones always find a way to communicate.

 

 

[Sacremas]

That is a very good point, some of the more prolific and experimental modders for Skyrim are Japanese and Chinese, such as the Arrow and Knee MOD Team (HDT physics, HDT High Heels), or the guy who made Bijin Warmaidens who's from japan and have issues with the language. However those mods tend to be very well presented, even if it's a machine translation, and the guy behind Bijin Warmaidens/Wives is an awesome guy who got me going on the mod I'm working on to support his by nudging me and who's agreed to do half of the presantation by taking the screenshots and showing me how to set up a proper Nexus page. And seriously if a guy from Japan or China or Italy can put out mods with awesome presatations when they know very little English themselves then Americans should be able to put out more than three lines in their description then get pissed off that no one understood it. Some people are just not worth the hassle, they don't have to release their mods to you true, but you don't have to download and use their mods. You're not a guy publishing mods online and waiting for it to upload if you don't care about people using and downloading your mod, it's just that simple, you wouldn't have uploaded it in that case. We are all looking for praise in anything we do and number of downloads, views, upvotes and endorsements is just more of that.

[Sacremas]

Goddamnit, I just noticed I have over 2000 hours logged on this game, that's over 83 continuous days. Who cares about life when they got Skyrim?

[Skippe]

yep thats skyrim it almost like virtual world where you can relax and sometimes lose yourself 2-3 houers without noticin it .i am children instructor and usually do 2-3 days jobs at daycare homes or elementary schools sometimes its 1-2 weeks and twice i have been half year at sameplace .usually i play at week ends or free days longer and work days maybe 1-2 houers. in some sense i combine freetime and work in gaming since i have basic idea what games is proper for grade schoolers to elementary 4-12 years old basicly.

[SadisticLiquid]

im bothered by text in first message: nVidia GeForce 580 8 GB video card is it just a typo or do u really have 580 with 8gb ram

 

since i have Msi lightning 780 gtx and it only has around 3 Gb

 

Amd fx-8350 4.0ghz 8 core processor

 

16gb ram

 

also using vividian enb normal version not high around 45-60 fps outside cities inside under 30 fps some stutters too occasionally where it goes around 15fps for a little while

 

most bsa's are unpacked and iw downloaded tony971 i think it was optimized skyrim hd textures

 

also sfo and verdant is installed and also using tamriel reloaded and ofc using mod organizer

 

also in my defence the card was best u could get in finland in 2013 and people have overclocked it to 6 GB but im hesitant to over clock it that far since there's still warranty for 2 years

 

 

[Sacremas]

Yep, I have an ASUS produced nVidia 8 Gig GTX 580 card so big it needs a series of strips to hold it up inside the case or it bends from it's own weight.

 

A 3 GB 780? Sorry to say it but you skimped out on some of the most important part of your PC setup, and an 80 series card is already expensive so you should have gone the extra length, you should have had 6 at least. What's the rest of your computer like, normal RAM, processor?

 

However don't let that stop you, the vast majority of tips will be fully applicable to even a lesser system, and will make it run faster, in fact under ENB I specifically point towards things to make your game run better that I'm not using because I don't need it. The rest is purely stability tips. And even with 3 GB VRAM you still have an 80 series card, and that's the strongest series of single-GPU's on the marked, you need to go up to SLI/Crossfire/90 series to get a stronger card, it just means you won't be able to load quite as many or as high quality textures at once.

 

I suggest you try Realvision full of the latest version, and if that stutters too much or you can't sustain a 30+ fps (hit the numpad star button to bring up fps counter with ENBseries installed, keep above 25 at least FPS as the human eye is 30 fps, but don't go over 60 fps as that will actually cause Skyrim's scripts to update at a faster rate as well for some weird reason, you'll find yourself and everyone else moving faster for example, and physics just generally going wonky) downgrade to the middle version. You shouldn't need to go all the way to Performance with it, and should be able to run other less intensive ENBs as well, try Kountervibe Northern Lights for example. Grass on Steroids and SFO will help you with FPS if you still stutter, and unpacking your BSAs and optimizing your vanilla textures will also help you along a little.

 

Understand beforehand that while your card may be great for running games like Advanced Warfare, Farcry 4 or the like on full settings, a modded Skyrim is quite potenitally the single most demanding game that you can get, and also the best looking one once you've modded it out to full capcaity. There are higher quality textures and mroe features available for download than any sane game company (even CryTech) puts in their games, simply because for a game company to do so will mean their game will be unavailable to the vast majority of consumers, but modders can add better things than that because with mods you can fit a game exactly to your standards and to your individual machine's limits. A well-modded skyrim is alwasy going to be the most optimized game as well that you can get.

[Sacremas]

Old mod, made functional again thanks to Groovatrama's skeleton that I already told you to use; Deadly Mutilation! WARNING, this mod guide contains excessive amounts of gore and violence!

 

Here's my new zombie thrall follower, she used to be a very attractive Bandit Girl via Deadly Wenches. Now... not so much.

 

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/538516939345744398/3711037FB9B10573F5448CFA0600CA6B2C23E048/

 

Here's what happened to another bandit girl.

 

http://cloud-2.steamusercontent.com/ugc/538516939345225375/9453B05633901122947C73638562BCB2216F3CA9/

 

Unfortunatley I was unable to raise or have sex with the bandit that I first froze to a chunk of ice then shattered so he ended up in giblets all over the floor. That used to be possible once upon a time, and it was rather creepy to look at a zombie that was a floating pile of gore with actually the eyes and brain still aligning up to where they used to be, but everything else just swirling around.

 

So yeah, if you want to put Fallout style gore into your Skyrim, Deadly Mutilation - Dismemberment, Blood and Gore is your out!

 

To make this mod work you first need a compatible skeleton, like Groovatrama's skeleton, which you can get here; http://www.loverslab.com/topic/25971-xp32-maximum-skeleton-extended/Note that this skeleton is set up for both pregnancy, deadly mutilation, weapon on back, realistic ragdolls and force, and SOS, and is the best skeleton available now.

 

Next up install the mod, and you also need the meshes for the armor, CBBE is your only out and really you won't see that many differences if you have a UNP based body like me, and if the bandit or whatever is wearing armor not covered in that, it simply means the armor won't show up on the coprse but will still be in the inventory.

 

If you have a race overhaul mod that changes the vanilla races like Imperious, Resplendent, SkyRe Races or Requiem you need also to make a TES5Edit patch to make the mod work. This is very painless and quick, first off place Deadly Mutilation higher in your load order than the ESP that handles the race overhaul so the overhaul gets loaded last, then run your entire load order in TES5Edit, Rigth click anywhere in your load order, scroll down to Other then "Create Merged Patch", name your mod preferably TES5Merged as mentioned ealrier on merge patches, and you're done, save once it's done making the merged patch and all race records from both Deadly Mutilation and your overhaul mod will have followed over

If you also are running a werewolf overhaul mod however you may need to go to Races in your TES5Merged and scroll down to Werewolf, rigth click anywhere on the left and choose "hide non-conflicting rows" and now you'll have a few werewolf special moves that will allow werewolves to be truly gruesome in combat, drag and drop those onto your TES5Merged.esp row, until everything turns yellow or green rather than red. Now you can save and exit and go in game as a werwolf and tear people apart with your claws, it's never been as fun to go berserk in furry form!

[Sacremas]

im bothered by text in first message: nVidia GeForce 580 8 GB video card is it just a typo or do u really have 580 with 8gb ram

 

since i have Msi lightning 780 gtx and it only has around 3 Gb

 

Amd fx-8350 4.0ghz 8 core processor

 

16gb ram

 

also using vividian enb normal version not high around 45-60 fps outside cities inside under 30 fps some stutters too occasionally where it goes around 15fps for a little while

 

most bsa's are unpacked and iw downloaded tony971 i think it was optimized skyrim hd textures

 

Okay, for the rest of your computer you unfortunately went just a little bit overboard. Unless you bought your computer to do things like 3D modeling and video compilation and the like that require large amounts of ram and a strong processor, you have otherwise too good a computer for ANY game to use properly... but Skyrim comes close for the processor at least. You can use various INI tweaks to set up the game to use all 8 cores at once, but there's a very good chance you'll get instabiltiies. You've probably seen crashes from other games, this is simply because the game engines get confused by the extra cores. The best thing is usually to use some method to park at least half of your cores so they aren't active while you're playing games, you'll see more stable performance and you'll see actually better performance, because the game's not spending as much time on being confused as it is just using your power.

16 GB ram is useless unless you plan to run two games at once however or want to use multiple monitors (and for that VRAm is more important). There's very few games available that use even 4 GB ram, and while you can use tricks like ENHost to make Skyrim and games ENBseries work for use more of your RAM, generally it's not going to see that much. VRAM is what games actually use, because that's what's holding your textures in such a way that the GPU can parse it, if you have low VRAM and high RAM then you might see iregularities where the GPU didn't get to work on your texture, so you'll get wrong shaders or pixellated graphics.

 

It sounds like you did right otherwise, first step towards making your game run better is not using the damn High Res betheda packs, they are horribly optimized and will slow your game down more than mods with 4 times the resolution. If you have a new ENB that you're using (look in ENBseries.ini, scroll down to the bottom and look for "FixParallaxTerrain", if you can switch that to True you got a good enough ENB) then Tamriel Reloaded HD is the best overall texture pack that will get you the highest performance as possible. Otherwise make sure to set up the SKSE.ini like I mention, get rid of all safety load and prechache killer things that meant to keep your game stable before, set your ugrids to 7 at the most and 5 for stability, and make sure that your ENB is set up to use all of your 3 GB, and not set up by default for 4 like many of them are, because that will make your game unstable.

[SadisticLiquid]

also did all this link said when i changed to mod organizer from nmm with clean game

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56894/?and also he's enb guide: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50214/?

 

 

also using these: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57353/? 

 

 

[Sacremas]

Those are pretty much the exact same places along with Gopher's files I got almost all of my information out of, so other than a maxed out SKSE.ini file you have probably already done everything I suggest in this guide.

 

In particular this line probably helped you alot with your low VRAM/High RAM;

 

VideoMemorySizeMb=XXXX <-- Setting to (RAM + VRAM - 2048) will take advantage of all of your available memory. Setting to (VRAM - 128) will prevent stuttering from processes being moved into/out of RAM. 1GB=1024.

 

This allows you to use mroe of your RAM, but is also the source of the issues you've seen with FPS suddenly going wild and stuttering. If you just had a very large amount of VRAM you wouldn't see that nearly as much and would have a smoother game, I have mine set to 8192 to take advantage of the full amount of VRAM, but I might reduce it to 8064 to be sure, I'd forgotten that part.

[Mimirue17]

Current Rig

Asus m5a99fx

AMD 8350 8 core 4.0

16 gig system Mem

MSI R9 280 3gig OC

2 Samsung 512 SSD

 

running:

JK's Skyrim all in one

Climates of Tamriel

SMIM

both ENB Patches

Pure Waters

ELFX

Cinematic Fire FX

Tamriel Reloaded HD

 

and using Tamriel Reloaded ENB

 

avg 45-65 fps, drops to around 40fps in towns/cities.

Rarely see anything in the 30's.

[Sacremas]

Make sure you let TRHD overwrite SMIMM (and COT/ELFX/ENB overwrite everything else in that order), othertwise looking good!

 

With your high RAM vs low VRAM you should take note of my previous post and use that tip to get better performance, if a little bit stuttering.

 

Also you might want to add Realistic Smoke and Embers to go with your fire; http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/836/?

[Mimirue17]

Make sure you let TRHD overwrite SMIMM (and COT/ELFX/ENB overwrite everything else in that order), othertwise looking good!

 

With your high RAM vs low VRAM you should take note of my previous post and use that tip to get better performance, if a little bit stuttering.

 

Also you might want to add Realistic Smoke and Embers to go with your fire; http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/836/?

just a follow up question.   off those 9 files I have listed could you list the order that they should be entered in MO for me.   I tried to base it off of realvision but not sure I got it correct.

 

I have 2 issues that bug me, one is the shadows created on the body when not in direct lighting, they look weird.   I will try to get a screenshot of what I mean.   Not sure if its from a texture or lighting mod, but I would love to get that fixed as it bugs me. 

Second, is the water near the edge of the continents flicker.   I noticed this when I chose the shipwrecked option in alternate start as well as the left for dead when it put me on the dragon born dlc island when I have never gone there before...not very safe place to be at level 1!

 

May be a load order issue or may need a different ENB.

[Sacremas]

I can't help you with the water because I use another water mod, but here's how common sense dictates the install;

 

Optimized vanilla textures

SMIMM and patches, and any mod that optimizes existing things like ruin clutters, as well as things like Project Parallax Remastered, though odds are you don't need it with TRHD

TRHD

Water mod

Weather Mod

Ligthing Mod

ENB (this is the main reason why if the ENB has a data folder portion you should always add that to MO, as if it's in the normal Data folder it's the first thing to get overwritten)

 

Everything that comes after TRHD needs to overwrite it or you get bugs. Lighting mods like ELFX and COT needs to be as low as possible because there's no such thing as a "lighting mod" other than the ENB itself, just another texture mod that instead add shaders on what you already have.

 

Doesn't matter at all because none of their assets are touched or touch others from your mods;

Fire FX (followed by Realistic Smoke and Embers, this should be after the lighting mod as it's really another lighting mod)

JK's Skyrim (uses all vanilla assets, most of which gets overwritten by TRHD, hence it doesn't overwrite, just adds more)

[Mimirue17]

I can't help you with the water because I use another water mod, but here's how common sense dictates the install;

 

Optimized vanilla textures

SMIMM and patches, and any mod that optimizes existing things like ruin clutters, as well as things like Project Parallax Remastered, though odds are you don't need it with TRHD

TRHD

Water mod

Weather Mod

Ligthing Mod

ENB (this is the main reason why if the ENB has a data folder portion you should always add that to MO, as if it's in the normal Data folder it's the first thing to get overwritten)

 

Everything that comes after TRHD needs to overwrite it or you get bugs. Lighting mods like ELFX and COT needs to be as low as possible because there's no such thing as a "lighting mod" other than the ENB itself, just another texture mod that instead add shaders on what you already have.

 

Doesn't matter at all because none of their assets are touched or touch others from your mods;

Fire FX (followed by Realistic Smoke and Embers, this should be after the lighting mod as it's really another lighting mod)

JK's Skyrim (uses all vanilla assets, most of which gets overwritten by TRHD, hence it doesn't overwrite, just adds more)

sweet, that helped alot.   Fixed almost all the issues I was having, had TRHD too low and water mod before TRHD.   Shadows look correct now and water doesn't flicker anymore   should make that a sticky somewhere

[howls]

I've been having crash issues with my Skyrim all week. Any saves I load in which I am in the main exterior space (main world) crashes after loading. I have asked all around aside from here, and they either don't reply or don't know. So here's some other things I've discovered, hopefully some of you peeps and come up with some theories that could save me from a great amount of stress...?

 

So here is a discovery log:

• • I use MO
  • I am above the mod limit for TESV consisting of 255 esp/esm.
  • I have around 300 mods
  • 3 Merged mods (shown below)

  1. Apocalypse Magic Mod and two patches that go with it  
  2. Personalized Music preferred esps
  3. Ton of Armor mods that use the CBBE Body/Bodyslide with HDT some don't)

  • Used the disable technique to find the conflicting mods, constantly starting up mod game.
  • Found a few mods that were messing with the crashes:

  1. Children Animation Path
  2. No Snow Under Roof
  3. Merged mod of all my installed armors, most for CBBE HDT/Bodyslide 
  4. Merged mod of "Extra Encounters (Main mod with required patches)

  Started working a few more times and put some other mods on a

  A bit later I discovered a few armor mods (NOT included in the Merged Armor mod) I recently installed started crashing exterior saves:

   

  1. Lady Bat and Wjun Mix for CBBE
  2. Midnight Breed Outfit for CBBE

After disabling/deleting a few more mods, worked, activated a few armor mods, crashed, disabled those mods again, still crashed, even when starting a new game with Alternate start it crashed, like what?? I know it's kind of confusing but honestly I don't know how else to describe it. I will look at it again later today, and if any replies I'll keep you guys updated so I can possibly get this fixed. In the meantime, please post any ideas or questions to make finding a solution easier for me and you, this is my last resort before having to install all over again OR have to do a Skyrim run in which I have ONLY interior saves, that's no fun. Thank you!