Skyrim Modding Guide

[trpd]

Well they got 2 limits afaik - cycle limit and simple time limit. Cycle limit used to be 3000 in first gen but in chase for lower price and bigger capacity they cell quality dropped rumoring to be around 2000, life limit aprox 5 years. That is data from 3 years ago when i did purchase mine - how did it change - no idea.

[Sacremas]

Yeah, that's very discouraging. I bought my 128 GB that my Windows is on about four-five years ago as well. I don't remember what manufacture it was either. Current one is a Samsung drive and I specificially did not choose the cheapest one available.

[KaelynZ]

Errr... exactly how limited is that limited lifespan? 5 years, 10 years?

 

That depends on what SSD you have, and how much data you write to it - but 10+ years is a conservative guess.    I think people can get a little paranoid about SSD 'lifespans'.  HDDs also have lifespans, after all - and unlike hard HDD crashes that render the whole thing unusable, SSDs degrade more gracefully.  They slowly grow senile (lose capacity) over time, whereas HDDs frequently just die suddenly.  In any case, the amount of data you need to write to one before it fails is truly immense - like 300+ TB for the lamest SSDs, and over 1000 TB for good ones.  (For comparison, I've been beating on my main gaming 750GB SSD for a bit over a year now, with heavy skyrim and FNV modding, and have only written a total of 3.7TB - which suggests that I will die long before my SSD does).    Basically, SSD lifespan only really matters to things like servers that write huge amounts of data ever day; home users (even hardcore gamers) need not worry about the matter.  Check out out this article and this one for updated discussions of the matter. 

 

In any case, there are a few simple things you can do to extended that life, too.  When partitioning it, though, definitely leave some unused space, as per manufacturer's instructions.  SSDs need to do a lot of internal memory management, as each block can only be written to a finite number of times.  So, the more free space it has to play with, the less overwriting it needs to do.  They already have some hidden reserved space, but more is better.  Also, make sure that you're not using your SSD for write-heavy stuff like swap space, or hibernation, or daily backups, and so on.

[Sacremas]

Aaah, that's a burden off me for sure, thank you GalenZ! Phew!

 

Yeah aside from downloading and deleting games (one every three months or so) and making and deleting saves as well as whatever windows does with temporary files for Firefox and such, my SSD has seen fairly limited use. The HDDs (I have four now after losing one, two internal two external, I lose one external every year about) have seen far more use. So I'm guessing my SSD

 

Can you tell me if this is a good brand of SSD, I have a Samsung 850 Pro now? I just bought it because of the Samsung name to be honest, I've learned to trust the big boys in general on electronics.

[KaelynZ]

 

Can you tell me if this is a good brand of SSD, I have a Samsung 850 Pro now? I just bought it because of the Samsung name to be honest, I've learned to trust the big boys in general on electronics.

 

Samsung PROs are *excellent* (which is why I have one myself).  The Tech Forum SSD endurance test of one showed it still going strong after more than 1000TB of writes.  (Whereas, the Samsung non-PRO SSD 'only' made it to 900 TB before failing unexpectedly).  And keep in mind that as a heavy gamer, I'm only writing maybe 4 TB of data a year at most.  You'll have replaced your CPU, Motherboard, and video card a dozen times over - and probably died yourself - before your SSD reaches its 'lifespan'.

[trpd]

No they are only stressing the cycle limit and it is easy math - 250GB x 3000 cycles  = 0.75 peta what those drives did last for , better ones with more cycles will last longer. But consumer wil never reach their cycle limit in normal use.

The thing is their decay with time. They lose charge and can't be really used as power-off storage. But the capacity also drops with age - just that there is no info about it. Guess SSD havn't been around for that long.

[Sacremas]

Yeah just found out my new SSD has a 10 year warranty from Samsung. Guess they're feeling confident about that one?

[Sacremas]

Okay so that's annoying; in the process of moving/redownloading Skyrim and Mod Organizer, my profiles got ruined. Including my most recent character, gone. Oh well, take the good with the bad in the modding game...

[trpd]

Guess they are .

 

Aww shame i kinda wanted to know how load times compare. Well if you have load order it shouldn't be that bad to recreate it.

 

Some moding quesions:

Fying - i  wanted to throw some fireballs from above but animations get bugged/stucked - thats how it is?

Audio - thoughts?  i'm considering AOS but all those patches and possibly conflicts that don't have patch ;/

Cloaks - are there good HDT ones ? (the hdt capes are kinda plain)

[Sacremas]

Flying - With new version of Flying Mod that seems to be what it is. On the old version if you pulled out a fireball in flying mode third person you could machinegun fire the fireballs as long as you had mana with 0 cast time or animation. In the new version it seems to animation freeze if you try anything aerial combat. I'm seriously considering going back to the old one, bugs and all.

 

-Audio - Currently I use Immersive Sounds Compendium for general sounds (footsteps, combat noises), and uglykidcid made a very cool celtic/fantasy music merger that he gave me that replaces all the music tracks. As that's not something I made or asked permission to share, I'm reluctant to just upload it. Be aware that a lot of audio overhauls bugs out magic mods, including perk overhaul mods that touch on magic, this includes PerMa and Apocalypse.  It tends to cause a looping annoying sound on several spells, and needs patches for each such mod you have. I have not run into such ISC.

 

Cloaks  - Yeah here's the thing, whatever you do, ever, in the rest of your modding days, do not spread the HDT love to anyone but yourself and dearest friends/followers. HDT bounce of breasts and butt is fine to a limit (too many NPCs and you have an issue, also during combat it's best if NPC armors are mostly non-bouncy to be sure), putting HDT hair and cloaks and heels and objects on NPCs like guards and the like will KILL your system dead. Each HDT thing requires a separate calculation by the HDT physics package, which your processor is tasked to. Say you fill up the Underground Bathouse with girls wearing HDT heels, you'll be lagging as if you had about 50 times as many non-HDT girls in there. Roughly .As such if they ever release HDT Winter is Coming cloaks, avoid it for anyone but yourself. But in short... not really, I'll link one I found that was okay, but when I used it (about 6 months ago) it was kinda buggy and not taking the cloak space in your slots, and Frostfall and the like won't care about it.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/59700/?

 

Would anyone be interested in a slightly violated version of Immersive Armors where all the helmets are invisible? Dont' Show headgears ended up being ineffective with IMmersive Armors being so heavily favored in leveled lists so most of those Deadly Wenches ended up with their pretty hairdos still covered up. I'm working on a version of Immersive Armors where all armros attainable by NPCs (so no Samurai armor, Alduin Scale armor, Paladin Armor, Falkreath armor etc) have their helmets rendered invisible and turned to circlets.

 

Be aware that if you're of the extreme powergaming type, this actually has a negative effect; with normal Immersive Armors you're able to wear both a hood and a circlet of several hoods, such as wearing Einherjar Plate Hood and a Barbarian Hero Circlet at the same time, or a fur hood and a mage's circlet at the same time. Now all the hoods and helmets are circlets and blocks that space instead. The few unmodified helmets that are left do not allow for circlets to be worn with them.

 

Also don't run this with Frostfall, because it would be silly. And I'm reasonably certain Frostfall won't like the new invisible circlet helmets and freeze your ears off.

[VenomousDuck]

Have you tried the Real Flying mod by the same author as animated dragon wings? I just downloaded it and am going to try it out. The downside is you can't fight while flying and no first person flying.

 

By the way thank you for this guide I have found a lot of useful information in it and have found some interesting mods because of it.

[trpd]

Flying :-( . 

I suspected as much with AOS. Uploading music is not good idea.

 

Not sure about the performance impact but i know that HDT on random NPC is bad. I once had mod give out HDT hairs among others and had plenty of stretch to infinit issues.Those are the capes i mentioned as plain thanks neverless.

 

@Real Flying - thats new mod i think.

[VenomousDuck]

Well I tried the Real Flying mod, it seems to work as advertised so far. No aerial combat sucks and you are stuck with just 1 set of ordinary looking wings for now. You also seem to fly really slow compared to Flying Mod beta. Hopefully he will add the other Animated Dragon wings to it later and maybe some form of aerial combat.

[KaelynZ]

I have uploaded a patched and tested version of Merge Plugins 1.9.5 to my GitHub repository, under the name Merge Plugins 1.9.6 GZ.  This version correctly copies assets under MO when there are multiple mods defining the same merged esp file, as can occur when people keep deactivated old versions around. Specifically, 1.9.6GZ copies the assets from the last-loading active mod that contains the esp, in the current active profile - i.e. the same folder that contains the esp being merged.  This should resolve much of the asset copying flakiness that people have experienced when using Merge Plugins under MO.

The new version can be downloaded from https://github.com/GalenZ/TES5EditScripts/blob/master/Merge%20plugins%20v1.96GZ.pas. MatorTheEnternal - writer and maintainer of the MergePlugins script - has approved me making this patch, and will hopefully incorporate it's functionality in some future official version of Merge Plugins.

While I have tested this new script to a reasonable degree - it correctly ignores disabled mods, and correctly handles multiple active mods that contain the same esp - it should be regarded as an alpha version. It needs a lot more beating on to verify that it's ready for prime time.

[trpd]

Real Flying - that mod is no go for me. From what can i see it is based on fallingdown animation - so you surely can't fight while using it and you can't just hover in air - you need forward always pressed what destroys flying for me. Also the animations and forced up/down controlls are way behind that of flying mod.

[Mimirue17]

have a question on Bjinn Enhancements package you put together Sacremas.   I love the package overall, the ability to have all the popular ladies and adjust their looks is awesome.   However, I hate the HDT vagina (really??) and want to change out all the skin textures and meshes without overwriting the muscle maps you put on (very nice job on those btw).   I just prefer a little more bounce and nicer looking textures.   What is the best way to completely remove the Vagina from the mod, and is there a way to put one basic body texture and mesh folder inside the mod (much easier for the user to change textures to taste etc) while leaving the muscle maps under each one along with hair, eyes etc?  Maybe have the Vagina stuff in that same folder and if not wanted just delete that folder?   Just an idea, or with a little direction will go make all the adjustments as I run across each NPC.   I do love the mod, dont get me wrong, and it will always be in my loads, and appreciate all the effort and time you put into it!

[Old Book]

Three Questions:

1) Mighty Magic. I read up thread your reasons for not keeping this mod, and they're convincing. For a long while I've been letting SPERG over write Mighty Magic's tweaks to perks and magic scaling, then using SkyTweak to do some final adjusting. On the other hand, there are many spells in Mighty Magic that I really like, and don't want to do without. In particular, spells that allow teleporting (Astral Path to teleport to standing stones, Beacon of Magnus to teleport back to the college), and spells that fortify Health and Magicka (very useful at low levels). Is Mighty Magic likely to cause any problems with save game bloating or papyrus load when being over written?

2) I also use Apocalypse Magic, Dwemertech, and Colorful Magic for my basic spells. I'm not a fan of Spectraverse, mostly because there are enough ways already to blow people up, and I hate enemies who can only be killed in one specific non-intuitive way. For a long while I used Forgotten Magic Redone (a great mod), but removed it because the spells tended to make any other combat magic superfluous. I've tried, on and off, Phenderix Magic Evolved, but as much as I like some of those spells I've ended up removing it because I didn't like the Phenderix Ambasadors or the occasional odd bugs. Midas Magic is buggy and unfinished, and following the paid mod disaster I doubt we'll ever see the fully polished version on the Nexus. Are there any other spell packs you highly recommend?

3) I'm a big fan of Deadly Wenches and F.E.M.A.L.E. I also use Monster Mod (Nexus version) with the Giantess plug in and Immersive Monsters, along with Feminized Level Lists. I've recently added your ERSO combo mod. Are there any other enemy adding mods you particularly like? 
 

[Sacremas]

have a question on Bjinn Enhancements package you put together Sacremas.   I love the package overall, the ability to have all the popular ladies and adjust their looks is awesome.   However, I hate the HDT vagina (really??) and want to change out all the skin textures and meshes without overwriting the muscle maps you put on (very nice job on those btw).   I just prefer a little more bounce and nicer looking textures.   What is the best way to completely remove the Vagina from the mod, and is there a way to put one basic body texture and mesh folder inside the mod (much easier for the user to change textures to taste etc) while leaving the muscle maps under each one along with hair, eyes etc?  Maybe have the Vagina stuff in that same folder and if not wanted just delete that folder?   Just an idea, or with a little direction will go make all the adjustments as I run across each NPC.   I do love the mod, dont get me wrong, and it will always be in my loads, and appreciate all the effort and time you put into it!

 

This is easy, look for the following files; any .dds file named vag, those are the vagina textures, take them all out. That's technically all you need to do, but you can also delete the SKSE folder as well, that only contains the xml data for the vagina.

 

Sorry you didn't like it, I'll keep that in mind and make it optional if I ever release it on the nexus or redo it.

[Sacremas]

Three Questions:

 

1) Mighty Magic. I read up thread your reasons for not keeping this mod, and they're convincing. For a long while I've been letting SPERG over write Mighty Magic's tweaks to perks and magic scaling, then using SkyTweak to do some final adjusting. On the other hand, there are many spells in Mighty Magic that I really like, and don't want to do without. In particular, spells that allow teleporting (Astral Path to teleport to standing stones, Beacon of Magnus to teleport back to the college), and spells that fortify Health and Magicka (very useful at low levels). Is Mighty Magic likely to cause any problems with save game bloating or papyrus load when being over written?

 

2) I also use Apocalypse Magic, Dwemertech, and Colorful Magic for my basic spells. I'm not a fan of Spectraverse, mostly because there are enough ways already to blow people up, and I hate enemies who can only be killed in one specific non-intuitive way. For a long while I used Forgotten Magic Redone (a great mod), but removed it because the spells tended to make any other combat magic superfluous. I've tried, on and off, Phenderix Magic Evolved, but as much as I like some of those spells I've ended up removing it because I didn't like the Phenderix Ambasadors or the occasional odd bugs. Midas Magic is buggy and unfinished, and following the paid mod disaster I doubt we'll ever see the fully polished version on the Nexus. Are there any other spell packs you highly recommend?

 

3) I'm a big fan of Deadly Wenches and F.E.M.A.L.E. I also use Monster Mod (Nexus version) with the Giantess plug in and Immersive Monsters, along with Feminized Level Lists. I've recently added your ERSO combo mod. Are there any other enemy adding mods you particularly like? 

 

 

1) No the problems were only with the perk settings, the scaling was too rough, it basically makes it about 10 times as strong as your spells get in SPERG or SkyRe. Really "mighty" in other words. With SPERG overwriting the perks you have avoided that. However some Mighty Magic spells will look underpowered compared to vanilla and Apocalypse. It won't cause any problems beyond that. I suggest not using the artifacts however, and instead using the ones I linked before, Improved Artifacts and Daedric Artifacts Improved Dawnguard version.

 

2) Yeah I found the same issues with both Phenderix and Forgotten Magic, FMR is cool but it's too powerful and the game becomes only around using those spells, and it actually scales up all your other spells as well. I've taken it out of my load order, possibly for good. Phenderix I just plain didn't like, too many silly decisions in that. Apocalypse just updated to v8.01, and More Apocalypse released as it's own mod, I recommend both of those. With the ones you already have from Mighty Magic and Colorful magic I don't think you relaly need any more spells? If you want custom spells install Spell Crafting for Skyrim.

 

3) if you like Deadly Wenches this might be of interest, this requires KS Hairdos that I uploaded but nothing else, this merges Immersive and Deadly Wenches. Try out Radiant Prostitution that I added a while ago to make all the IW prostitutes with routines, they work very well and adds some ambience. Immersive-Deadly Wenches Merged UKC

 

With Deadly Wenches, ERSO and Immersive Creatures + Monster Mod do you really need more enemies? Your dungeons are already going to be fairly well packed up. I would not recommend adding more NPCs, could result in bloat or instability, or plain overcrowding. One option could be to add ASIS along with ASIS Improved Inis, it's already set not to distribute SPERG perks or certain Apocalypse spells to NPCs, and it will potenially double the amount of enemies you already have. I tried Monsters Reborn and it was terrible. Add Revenge of the Enemies, Combat Evolved and either Duel Combat Realism, Deadly Combat or Ultimate Combat to make the enmies smarter instead.

 

One thing you can look into is the Inferno set of mods, but DO NOT install them until you hit level 30-50 or so, whenever the rest of the world starts to feel too easy to your DovahGod on Legendary. They add a lot of insanely powerful enemies that can one-shot a Dovah even if s/he has 5000 health or more and maxed out armor and resistances. They add a lot of new NPCs and enemies as well.

[Old Book]

Thanks very much for that link. Downloading. You and Uglykidcid have done some great compilations. 

I always need more spells, but on the lines of fun odd job spells and summons rather than raw damage spells.  

All joking aside, I have had problems with some mod set ups with too many enemies, especially when I was still using Sands of Time. I just get bored facing the same bad guys on every play through. I used ASIS for a long time just to distribute spells, but have found it doesn't play well with NPC appearance changing mods. I've tried using the blocked list to get around that, but can't get the hang of it. 

[Sacremas]

I haven't had any issues with appearance changing mods and ASIS. Did you run a TES5Merged first? That's kinda required with SkyProc patches or they'll set the NPC to the first thing they find, run a TES5Merged and make sure everyone has their apperances, Revenge of the Enemies AI routines, and Immersive Weapons loadouts and the like, then make a Bashed Patch for your leveled lists, then ASIS after that. It references mostly your TES5Merged, and everyone keeps everything.

[Old Book]

Post #202, where you linked the KS hair pack, really deserves to be linked to from page one or two of the thread. It's great one stop shop for anyone looking for a complete overhaul collection, with all of the tweaking already done.  Thanks for putting it all together. http://www.loverslab.com/topic/43043-skyrim-modding-guide/?p=1146423

[Sacremas]

Thanks but acutally this is the post you want; http://www.loverslab.com/topic/43043-skyrim-modding-guide/?p=1141447

 

The one you linked is just UNO, and I took down that download because everyone ended up with grayfaces. The one above it is much simpler, no grayfaces there, I still use that. However that's not much work in that, it's just putting selecting those modules when installing ERSO then using Merge script to merge them together. Mergining of the mod took less time than uploading it did.

 

I may try remaking the UNO one but it's going to take a bit of manning up to do, it was like 4-5 hours of work.

[Mimirue17]

interesting post today under the Zaz topic, about how one person got the number of animations (163 total?) to work, with all the options out there.

 

 

 

Open up CK, let it load everything.

Go to Gameplay -> Papyrus Script Manager.

Open sslAnimationDefaults (will open in notepad)

Comment out with a semicolon whatever you don't want to register in Sexlab.

Save file then close.

RIght click sslAnimationDefaults, Compile.  It should compile with no errors.  Exit CK.

Restart Skyrim, reset animation registry in Sexlab.

Verify in animation listings the ones you commented out don't appear.

 

Tada!  The animations you don't want to use will never register freeing up precious slots for the animations you DO want to use.  With this pack and NSAP I find this method a necessity as there are just too many excellent animations!

 

 

have not seen it confirmed by zaz yet, but if it does work might be useful to know till the new Sexlab comes out.

[Sacremas]

Yeah I saw that, should in theory work fine, but I don't want to fire up CK and check it. I actually like most of the basic animations is the thing, even a few of the AP ones, and so I don't want to permanently disable any of them.

 

By the way, check out the last post on the first page of this thread for some collected goodies, I'll be posting more there.