'New' to skyrim mods, help needed to choose which ones

[bedazzledcolours1]

Hey. I have played skyrim long ago with a very few mods;  however, I would like to try adding a good deal of mods to 'enhance' my skyrim experience. 

 

It is a jungle, and I do not know where to begin, what to choose, what not to choose,  so my questions are:
 

Are there any sort of 'packs/bundles' people have made that I can choose from/ you would recommend? 

 

Or can someone inhere recommend what mods I should be getting? whatever they do, I am interesting in them all.

 

Also, about the steamworks, do i need to add any mods from there as well? or will i find them here?

 

 

PS. I have a fast computer, so high resolution texture files (and what not) is no probs for me to run, also having a 30mbit connection, so very large files should be doable aswell.

 

 

I hope someone will help me out with this. I would love to get started again with proper mods

 

Cheers!

[Kargrin]

Fem Body- Unp/unpb/sevenbase, theres also cbbe, chsbc, adec and may sub variations

Npc overhaul - I use bijin warmaidens, theres also a lot of others

Graphics - Realistic lightning (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30450/?) and/or Enb  ( enbdev.com/index_en.html)

Theres also ones that should be personal, like houses:(http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/searchresults/?src_cat=67) /armors/cloth/animations/hairs. (Googling it shows a lot, id personally like Hepsy hair.)

Tropical skyrim is cool if youre already bored of the snow theme.

 

 

[cowkow88]

ya can try googling "skyrim beautification project"...

[Jacob201]

When you download mods from Nexus, i recommend always checking the comments section.

Its a good way to see which mods are broken/buggy or outdated. And theres plenty of all those.

Also use some mod manager. 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/1334/?

or

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

 

If you want immersion heres a good list to start with.

http://skyrimgems.com/

[nutluck]

Well my first question is what kinds of mods are you looking for? It would help knowing what you want. I mean you have sex mods, you have immersion mods(eat sleep, drink, etc), you have combat mods, you have non lore friendly mods (like tanks, trains etc), you have follower mods etc

 

There is tens of thousands of mods. Having a rough idea what you want would go a long way to use recommending mods.

[Guest endgameaddiction]

The best thing about heavily moddable games such as these, is the experimenting process. Finding the right combination that suits your game style.

 

Abuse the search browser function here, Nexus and Google  They're your beneficial sex friends.

 

[Guest]

Well it really depends on your specs and what you want in your game but i'll go ahead and recommend some to you that I personally can't live without.

 

ⓐ Modding Programs:

 

Do your research on these please don't choose NMM

 

1.) Mod Organizer ; By far the best hands down makes it easy to organize mods without screwing up your game

 

2.) Nexus Mod Manger ; This is a program they try to sell to beginners on the Nexus who don't know any better don't choose the blue pill!

 

3.) Wrye Bash ; Now this program is essential because one feature its bash patch that merges leveled lists.

 

ⓑ Complete Overhaul Mods:

 

What this is it basically changes perks, combat, races etc (choose one or none) when I say mod friendly I mean outside mods changing things is easier

 

1.) T3nd0s Skyrim Redone ; This mod is a bit older now fun with minor bugs and glitches played up to lvl 60 character successfully mod friendly 

 

2.) Requiem ; This is not really compatible with alot of mods requires alot of patches but the way he sets up this game makes for a harder play through good combat and use of stamina system.

 

3.) T3nd0s Perkus Maximus ; This is the newest overhaul and from what I played I like it alot perks are the best set in this mod with great mod support only issue is long patching times.

 

ⓒ Performance, Bug Fixing, and Essential Mods

 

These are no doubt must haves:

 

1.) SKSE ; Not really a mod, it is basically an alternate launcher for skyrim that applies fixes and without this you won't be able to use most all mods.

 

2.) SKSE.ini ; Fixes memory allocation from 246 to 512 meaning normally you crash at 246 memory but now you have more wiggle room.

 

3.) Better Message Box Controls ; This allows you to press "E" for dialogues and message boxes instead of using your mouse for everything.

 

4.) Unofficial Skyrim Patch ; These mods are years in the making by arthmoor who is a god, this fixes all sorts of fuckery remember to get dlc patches as well.

 

5.) Skyrim Project Optimization ; Improves interior performance

 

6.) ENB ; Now this fixes alot of issues as well as adds several graphics enhancements(optional), you'll find presets on the nexus for this RealVision being the most used.

 

7.) SkyUI ; This adds the ability for menus for most mods too function adds as well many different UI changes.

 

8.) Racemenu ; This changes the character creation menu allows for more changes even has a face editor.

 

9.) Alternate Start ; Creator of the Unofficial patches mod that allows you to choose a different start then the long 15min carriage seen be a vampire, necromancer or own a house or be shipwrecked your choice!

 

ⓓ Visual World & Effects Mods

 

1.) Climates of Tamriel ; Adds a weather system and more.

 

2.) Skyrim Flora Overhaul ; Better trees, grass, shrubs and more!

 

3.) HighResTexturePack ; This you need to download on Steam made by bethesda

 

4.) Water ; Make water better adds waves and all sorts of great effects

 

5.) Realistic Lighting Overhaul ; Now there are several but this one takes the cake IMO and is my favorite more realistic.

 

6.) Footprints ; Adds footprints to the ground/snow you walk on very immersive.

 

7.) Supreme Storms ; Better looking rain and effects amazing mod

 

8.) SMIM ; Fixes many of the meshes in skyrim a huge undertaking of all skyirm's meshes.

 

ⓔ Visual Character & Effects Mods

 

1.) Wet and Cold ; See water drip off character, applies blindness in blizzard and adds snow effects as well as hoods and clothing for weather system to npcs

 

2.) Enhanced Blood ; Better looking blood shows blood on characters body when you kill enemies or get hit

 

3.) Bloody Facials ; This makes it so blood appears on face

 

4.) Burn Freeze and Shock ; This mod adds effects to the enemies you kill if you use fire you'll see a burnt corps ice frozen etc.

 

5.) Get Snowy ; Applies snow effects to your character better than Wet and Cold in that 1 instance they are compatible with each other.

 

6.) Player Headtracking ; Allows your player to move there head and look at npcs they talk to or walk by depending on you disposition to that character also expressions.

 

7.) Ethereal Elven Overhaul ; Makes elves looks so much better a must get.

 

ⓕ NPC/Creatures 

 

1.) Immersive Creatures ; A ton of new creatures, new spawns and more

 

2.) Bijin WarMaidens ; Better looking housecarls and other very cute characters followers with this mod.

 

3.) Convenient Horses ; Choose between several horse skins and saddles, change anything about your horse whistle to call horse quest.

 

4.) Interesting Npcs ; Adds fully voiced new npcs to that game

 

5.) Inconsequential Npcs ; does the same as well as add workers extra helpers for the blacksmith things like that.

 

6.) Immersive Wenches ; adds wenches to taverns and the roads very well done mod.

 

7.) Populated lands road path ; Has several mods that add more npcs/enemies to roads, forts, caves, prisons and towns.

 

8.) Rs Children ; Better looking children

 

Ⓖ Gameplay

 

COMBAT

 

Now this is all personal preference choose the ones that sound best to you.

 

1.) Combat Evolved ; Difficulty increaser this one works in tandem with other combat overhauls

 

2.) Deadly Combat ; More a fully fledged out combat overhaul, stagger system is not the best kinda confusing context menu but it gets the job done with plenty of options.

 

3.) Duel - Combat Realism ; This mod adds more behavior in how the enemy fight and minor tweaks to stamina etc good to use with Combat Evolved.

 

4.) NPC Knockout Overhaul ; Simple enough allow you to knock out Npc if they hit a certain threshold percentages configurable.

 

5.) Dual Wield Parry ; Allows you to set a block hotkey that allows you to block while dual wielding.

 

DEATH

 

1.) Death Alternative ; Death no longer stops your adventure, get robbed, saved, trapped, imprisoned and ugh sexy time things.

 

2.) VioLens ; Killmove mod allows for several new killmoves and configurable

 

3.) Deadly Mutilation ; Allows you to literally dismember your foes....brutal!

 

QUEST/CITY

 

1.) Cutting Room Floor ; Finishes quests Bethesda was suppose to have in the game creator of the Unofficial patches.

 

2.) The Paathurmax Dilemma ; Always hated how you had to choose to kill Paathurmax to advance the main quest now you can make the choice and tell the blades to fuck off.

 

3.) ETAC ; Adds several much needed improvements to the towns of skyrim.

 

4.) Snow City ; An expansion of Windhelm looks amazing

 

5.)

 

 

Ⓗ Immersion

 

1.) Frostfall ; The wilderness is dangerous deal with freezing to death, build campfires and avoid getting wet. Very fun an unobtrusive mod

 

2.) RND or iNEED ; Both do the same thing essentially giving the need eat/sleep/drink essential for survival, I would prefer RND but iNEED is not abandoned.

 

3.) Immersive detection ; Better detection in light and dark areas for sneaking, a must have mod for me for sure.

 

4.) Realistic Room Rentals ; Allows you to change the prices for several inns to a more appropriate setting.

 

5.) Farm animals ; Adds farm animals to several pins/farms in skyrim small fun mod

 

6.) Dynamic Things ; Good with frostfall allows you to chop down trees collect wood, destroy containers even make them safe containers, even break stone and use pickaxe in realtime.

 

7.) Better Fast Travel ; allows carriages and ships so you don't have to worry about constantly map traveling even go to places you never been.

 

8.) Convenient Bridges ; Adds natural bridges to skyrim to get to and from easier, bridges can be anything a fallen tree perhaps!

 

Ⓘ Useful

 

1.) SM Drop Torches ; You can now drop torches and they stay lit if you have a torch drawn and decide to go into combat it will drop your torch so you can see as well as giving you a torch hotkey.

 

2.) More Hotkeys Please ; a very easy mod allowing you to set hotkeys for instance with just the "A' hotkey you can have four hotkeys, normal, doubletap, hold, and modifier.

 

3.) Auto Unequip Ammo ; Now you don't have to worry about equipping/unequipping arrows it does it automatically when you equip your bow.

 

4.) Face Light ; A spell you can put on your characters face so you can see it in the dark be surprised how much you wanted this when you use it.

 

I'll add more later....

 

[bedazzledcolours1]

Thanks for all your replies, especially you aareyn. Amazing list. I'll start out with those mods, and looking forward to your continuation if you are going to continue it at some point .

 

kargrin: I will check out those body mods.

 

Nutluck i think aareyn have already covered most. however, i would like to get your, and anyone else's recommendations on body mod(s), character improvements like hair, skin, makeup et cetera. 

 

Jakob: will do.

 

cowkow88: looks amazing: however, i see in the comment section they 'stopped' supporting it a good while ago, will it have any effect of any kind if I were to try it out? (maybe with other mods?).

 

Endgameaddiction, thanks, i will keep that in mind

 

 

Thanks again. appricate the help.

[Guest]

Thanks for all your replies, especially you aareyn. Amazing list. I'll start out with those mods, and looking forward to your continuation if you are going to continue it at some point .

 

kargrin: I will check out those body mods.

 

Nutluck i think aareyn have already covered most. however, i would like to get your, and anyone else's recommendations on body mod(s), character improvements like hair, skin, makeup et cetera. 

 

Jakob: will do.

 

cowkow88: looks amazing: however, i see in the comment section they 'stopped' supporting it a good while ago, will it have any effect of any kind if I were to try it out? (maybe with other mods?).

 

Endgameaddiction, thanks, i will keep that in mind

 

 

Thanks again. appricate the help.

 

Yeah I just needed to finish Game of thrones i'll put some more up there

[Guest]

I'll add more I am typed out   I know I can recommend more so many great mods, also I'll probably make a stay away from list of mods.

[nutluck]

Nutluck i think aareyn have already covered most. however, i would like to get your, and anyone else's recommendations on body mod(s), character improvements like hair, skin, makeup et cetera.

 

Personally I like the body that comes with body slider 2, I use UNP myself. For skin texture I use Fair Skin which comes with makeup, eyes, etc all tailored made for that skin texture. Then I use AOF Believable Hair.

 

In addition to all that I use HDT mods for physics on the body.

[WaxenFigure]

I'll add more I am typed out   I know I can recommend more so many great mods, also I'll probably make a stay away from list of mods.

Good list but it has a flaw:

 

You recommended SSME but that patch is now built into SKSE so SSME is now obsolete.

 

Only catch is that you must edit the SKSE.INI file to enable the patch, they do not enable it by default since it might conflict with people still running SSME.

[Varithina]

Take a look here http://wiki.step-project.com/Main_Page

 

If you are adding a lot of player made armour, weapons and jewellery mods, pick up lootification from nexus, as that will add them to npc's, vendors and random loot, some of the pre-enchanted.

 

Though you can end up with some odd looking males from using lootification, or rather from players not setting their armour mods up correctly, ie, missing torso, female torso on male npc's.

[supercaca]

"Requiem"

 

Try that one, but dont rush, your first impression will be negative but if you give the mod some time you will be having a lot of fun i promise you that.

 

Also "Frostfall", "Hunterborn" and the "compatibility patch" for them to work finely with "Requiem".

 

And this ones to make skyrim a more crowded place but in an inmerse way:

-"Immersive Patrols" > Choose only the vanilla one the Dlc ones are a little buggy.

-The great > "Interesting NPCs"

-"Inconsequential NPCs"

 

A multiple follower mod. I try UFO, AFT and EFF and I recomend you "Extensible Follower Framework" because its the best.

 

And a tiny mod with few scripting that i think its more stable and over all  things, playable than Enchanced blood textures and the gore mod out there. it is "Burn Freeze Shock Effects".

 

These are the pinnacles of an uber funny gameplay.

[Guest]

 

I'll add more I am typed out   I know I can recommend more so many great mods, also I'll probably make a stay away from list of mods.

Good list but it has a flaw:

 

You recommended SSME but that patch is now built into SKSE so SSME is now obsolete.

 

Only catch is that you must edit the SKSE.INI file to enable the patch, they do not enable it by default since it might conflict with people still running SSME.

 

 

Oh I didn't know that thanks for letting me know

[bedazzledcolours1]

/poke saber, still lurking the thread for a continuation

 

supercaca, I looked at that Requiem mod, and it seems interesting to try out. I am wondering thou, regarding all the mods posted from saber, will there be complications here?

 

Nutluck: thanks, gonna try those aswell.

[Guest]

/poke saber, still lurking the thread for a continuation

 

supercaca, I looked at that Requiem mod, and it seems interesting to try out. I am wondering thou, regarding all the mods posted from saber, will there be complications here?

 

Nutluck: thanks, gonna try those aswell.

 

lol k i'll add some more tonight =)

 

there are a couple things you need to watch out for 

 

1.) RS Children- You my get severe FPS drops if you use XP32 skeleton by groovetrama

 

FIX: Replace the skeletons with these  skeleton_female_kids.nif and skeletonkids.nif

 

2.) Skyrim Flora Overhaul- Infinite loading screens

 

FIX: He has under optional files a lower res LOD which I suggest

 

3.) Requiem- as stated most mods won't work with this for instance any combat mods mostly

 

FIX: Be careful and test what you install and look for patches.

 

4.) Skyre/Perkus/Requiem- I suggest find a load order you like and just play through the game, re-patching usually leads to problems

 

FIX: Run the patcher only once, its ok if you want to do it mid game I just don't suggest it

 

5.) Alternate Start- I see in the forums alot of times peoples games won't get past the loading screen

 

FIX: Run Loot make sure it is near the bottom of load order

 

6.) Frostfall/WetandCold/GetSnowy- All have effects shaders

 

FIX: Wet and colds shaders are in Frostfall disable wet and colds, disable frostfalls snowy shader for Get snowy's up do you really.

 

7.) Ethereal Elven Overhaul- This needs a patch if you use requim

 

FIX: Only thing I think it changes is carry weight requiem puts you at 150 ethereal has it vanilla 300

 

8.) Player Headtracking- If you're a vampire/elf race headtracking does not work.

 

FIX: Funny I actually created a mod that fixes this

 

9.) Immersive Creatures- won't be able to spawn with the leveled lists correctly

 

FIX: Get Wrye Bash create a bash patch.

 

Those are the only issues I've had using these mods.

[bedazzledcolours1]

EDIT: problem solved

 

Hey saber. maybe you can help me with ENB. 

 

I got the newest version 0.269. I took the d3d9.dll and enbhost.exe from the wrapper version to my skyrim steam folder.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim

 

I use MO and edited the skyrimprefs.ini from the ini editor adding the bFloatPointRenderTarget=1 under the [display] area.

 

I also made sure these 3 lines were set to = 1:

 

bTreesReceiveShadows=1

bDrawLandShadows=1
bShadowsOnGrass=1

 

However when i startup my game it is all messed up:

 

 

 

 

What did i do wrong?

[Varithina]

Hey saber. maybe you can help me with ENB. 

 

I got the newest version 0.269. I took the d3d9.dll and enbhost.exe from the wrapper version to my skyrim steam folder.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim

 

I use MO and edited the skyrimprefs.ini from the ini editor adding the bFloatPointRenderTarget=1 under the [display] area.

 

I also made sure these 3 lines were set to = 1:

 

bTreesReceiveShadows=1

bDrawLandShadows=1

bShadowsOnGrass=1

 

However when i startup my game it is all messed up:

 

 

 

 

What did i do wrong?

 

Are the other files from your installed enb in the right place? mo can't install most enb's they usually either have a patcher you find in the data tree of mo, or need manually copying to the skyrim directory.

 

And from what I have read installing into the program files is a bad idea, though as my steam install is on a seperate hard drive I have not seen any problems.

 

[bedazzledcolours1]

 

Hey saber. maybe you can help me with ENB. 

 

I got the newest version 0.269. I took the d3d9.dll and enbhost.exe from the wrapper version to my skyrim steam folder.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim

 

I use MO and edited the skyrimprefs.ini from the ini editor adding the bFloatPointRenderTarget=1 under the [display] area.

 

I also made sure these 3 lines were set to = 1:

 

bTreesReceiveShadows=1

bDrawLandShadows=1

bShadowsOnGrass=1

 

However when i startup my game it is all messed up:

 

 

 

 

What did i do wrong?

 

Are the other files from your installed enb in the right place? mo can't install most enb's they usually either have a patcher you find in the data tree of mo, or need manually copying to the skyrim directory.

 

And from what I have read installing into the program files is a bad idea, though as my steam install is on a seperate hard drive I have not seen any problems.

 

 

 

EDIT: problem solved.

 

Yeah... i saw that somewhere aswell about installing it into the program files folder. I am not sure i dare to re-install everything again making all these mods work was a pain,  and i am afraid of having to do it again

 

I followed the instructions from realvision, on installing ENB.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30936/?

 

1. Download ENBSeries v0.269 (enbseries_skyrim_v0269.zip) from enbdev.com and extract it somewhere.

 

2. Copy d3d9.dll AND enbhost.exe from the wrapper folder to Steam/Steamapps/common/Skyrim.

 

3. Download RealVision via your mod manager and install the option of your choice.

 

4. NMM and Wrye Bash users go to Steam/SteamApps/common/Skyrim/Data/RealVision_ENB_files. Mod Organizer users go to Mod Organizer/mods/RealVision ENB (version)/RealVision_ENB_files.

 

5. Installation of RealVision files.

 

and the lines addod to the skyrimprefs.ini was from http://enbdev.com/mod_tesskyrim_v0269.htm

 

That is all i did. i don't know if i need to do something more or not. I see when i startup skyrim that ENB is working, the message on the top left corner of the screen.

 

 

PS. it has nothing to do with realvision, it happends whatever i activate it or not from MO.

[Unkaar]

May I bring some attention onto combat master? An excellent mod from the arrow'n'knee team that aim to mimic dark soul's poise system and include a dodge button, an improve stagger system and is 100% compatible with perma. It goes quite well with ultimate combat.

Skytweaks and FISS are also necessities needed in every game.

[Serithi]

I honestly can't recommend downloading any bundles whatsoever. Yes, there's a ton of mods out there, that's exactly why bundles are no good. You're relying on the bundlers to keep those bundles up to date when you could just be tracking the mods yourself, and they can (and likely will) contain a bunch of mods you absolutely don't want alongside mods you absolutely do want when you could just download the ones you want yourself.