Elder Scrolls Skyrim thread

[TheMix]

I think the key is to recognize that you are going to play it multiple times. So just focus on the main story and becoming the leader of one guild. That way you don't bog down. As much...

Though I do sometimes mix the thief/assassin ones with one of the others (usually Figher).

[Blackhawk]

And picking a faction in the civil war.

[$iljanus]

My first go around many years ago I sided with the Nords but wasn't a big fan of their Nordland for the Nords campaign. I guess I made certain choices that still let me work with the Imperials but at that point of the story I was pretty powerful and had no tolerance for the low level quests the Imperials assigned me or their crap attitude.

Recently I bought the remastered version for the PS4 and I'm a lizard man. My lizard man has little need for the petty concerns of the Imperials or Nords however so we'll see how long this playthrough lasts. I guess I could explore the world outside Skyrim in the expansion.

[Paingod]

Last night I adjusted Frostfall to a 0.2 multiplier for cold instead of 1.0 (inside the Mod Customization Menu in System) and it felt close to right. I fought a guerrilla skirmish against a group of strong bandits - snipe with a bow, reposition, snipe, reposition, stay in stealth - for quite some time and it took a good 15-20 minutes of creeping around in a light snowfall before my character started to shiver and got close to freezing to death - and I warmed right up once I was inside. I did try to make a tent and campfire so I could keep fighting after a brief rest, but forgot that I used up all my firewood making arrows... ...so I had to go back to town. At 91% exposure - close to death (well, "unconsciousness and waking up somewhere else") all of my skills were just tanked. I was barely functional.

I had turned up the number of bandits in camps in OBIS, but think I'll turn them back down. That skirmish above took a long time and I only killed maybe half of them before I moved on. There were a number of high level bandits, so maybe I wasn't supposed to be there yet (Morrowloot uses strict level scaling, so some areas will always be hard while others are always easy).

The Ars Metallica mod is a nice crafting addition. I discovered last night that it not only increases the number of things you can craft, it also lets you deconstruct things you already have in your inventory to recover (most of?) the metal. Leather is lost - so it's not a perfect recycler, but it does lower the overhead in practicing Smithing - plus deconstruction adds skill. Tip: Don't have anything you care about equipped or in your inventory before you start spamming deconstruction. You can easily break down your favorite items.

A problem with having 60+ mods is that you don't know where everything is coming from. Somewhere along the way, I picked up a spell/skill that lets me "sniff" things out in a ~50' radius around me. This is a "Power" and not a "Spell" - meaning I can cast it with no hands. The light goes dark a little and people show up as wavering gas clouds, collectible ingredients show as small purple clouds, corpses are bright pink. Very useful for seeing around corners and through walls to plan ambushes - and finding bodies in fields of grass. It works well with being a trap-laying-sneak-archer. I just don't know where it came from. It wasn't there a couple days ago, so it was in a book I read or a skill I acquired, but I don't know which mod put it there.

I finally pushed on the main story far enough to activate and use my first shout - and am now off to explore the possibilities in the Dark Brotherhood. I'm planning to run their quests, then the Thieves guild. I have no intention of being a vampire, but might take Werewolf if I get there. I was thrilled to get Lydia to join me as I'm struggling with the number of books and alchemy ingredients I have on me. Getting her to accompany me was a literal weight off my shoulders... much to her dismay. I also blew my savings on Breezehome so I've got a place for her to stay. I might go get Erandur (Dark Elf Priest companion) from Dawnstar and park him there with her to keep her company. I'm not adopting children in this play through as I plan on being a very absentee kind of person.

[Tampa_Gamer]

So I am still researching/updating myself on what mods have been ported to the SSE version and which ones now have conflicts...hopefully the wife will let me actually have some time this evening to start cleaning the files and forming a base on which to pile everything. I will be using Mod Organizer 2, since I really like the ability to layer on each phase of mods and be able to peel the onion back to the starting point at any time (and have different mod groups for different play throughs).

This play through I plan to pick-up with my last (aborted due to bugs) intended character. As I do for any of my RPGs I will try and install mods designed to augment the traditional feel/intent of Skyrim, but adding depth to the intended role.

I will role play a chaotic/neutral Kajit with a primary class of thief/illusionist (OK. I am letting my 70s AD&D background show here a bit).

Primary/secondary deity of Nocturnal/Night Mistress. Day job is a historian/archaeologist specializing in ancient artifacts (amoral artifact finder by night).

Primary motivations will be to (1) collect ancient artifacts by any means possible (unless already on display for the public); (2) conduct himself for the primary glory of the museum (not individual wealth); and (3) prioritize obtaining artifacts to be appreciated by all/public (not individual collectors - a.k.a Indiana Jones).

Quicks include: (1) obsession with any item related to Khajit race or Elsweyr (no choice but to pursue this if quests conflict even if fail prior quest); (2) hatred of Argonians (not permitted to strike fair deals/barter or perform quests for them unless we ultimately screw them over, OK to steal from since they are a "lower" species); (3) minor addiction to Skooma (must take at least 1x week to maintain proper balance with nature and if Skooma stash <10 must spend all available coin to replenish before anything else - except immediate food/water needs).

Primary Mod -> Legacy of Dragonborn (SSE edition) this is the centerpiece and the museum ties in with character - all mods must be compatible

Secondary Mods-> Ordinator, Apocalypse, Campfire, Wildcat, Dig Site, Gray Cowl of Nocturnal, Alternate Start, Wet and Cold, Frostfall, iNeed, Imperious, Summermyst, Morrowloot Ultimate, Skyrim Revamped - Complete Enemy Overhaul

Tertiary Mods-> SkyUI, Ars Metallica, GIST

I really like the sound of OBIS, but still doing research on whether I can make it compatible via patches, etc. with Legacy of Dragonborn

Since the mods above are going to take some tweaking to work with the primary mod, I am looking at this S.T.E.P. page for guidance on a lot of issues, although I don't plan to add in everything as I think the graphics are just fine.

[Paingod]

Primary Mod -> Legacy of Dragonborn (SSE edition) this is the centerpiece and the museum ties in with character - all mods must be compatible

That's a pretty interesting centerpiece. It looks pretty expansive and like it would take a long time to play through. Very cool.

[Blackhawk]

That's what I went with for my current (on hold) playthrough. Legacy is fantastic.

Might I suggest looking at Alternate Start - Live Another Life? It integrates with Legacy of the Dragonborn to actually allow you to start the game as a 'Relic Hunter' with immediate access to the museum.

[Madmarcus]

I'm a couple of days late replying but thank you for the kind words about my list Paingod. I'm glad it was useful and didn't lead you into a huge minefield of conflicts. It's not important now but I only used NMM because it was already on my computer.

Now I want to go back to Skyrim but I won't have that computer for a good while!

[Paingod]

I'm a couple of days late replying but thank you for the kind words about my list Paingod. I'm glad it was useful and didn't lead you into a huge minefield of conflicts. It's not important now but I only used NMM because it was already on my computer.

Your list has been a huge help. I've really enjoyed my time.

Some bugs in the list I've encountered...

• Shouts - This is the biggest one, and I think it has to do with audio in one of the mods. When I "shout" a skill, it plays rapid-fire until I draw my weapon, then it stops. Actually, what I hear is the Cooldown Warning Noise about 5 times per second. If my weapons are drawn, Shout skills (and powers/spells that are tied to the same button) work normally.
• Project AHO - This isn't on your list, but I wanted to try it after hearing about it. The audio recordings are good, but out of place in Skyrim. It's obvious this is a player mod, is what I'm saying. The town it adds has a somewhat confusing layout, but interesting and detailed appearance. Some of the custom Mud Crabs are invisible, and just their back details move around. I'm stuck here, too, until I finish it. There's no way out except to cheat if I get tired of it, and it's said to be pretty big in scope.
• I've had two CTD - going from looking at Skyrim one second, to looking at desktop the next. Not sure if it's Skyrim, a mod, or my PC. I've had three instances where loading screens went back and never recovered, requiring me to kill the game and restart it. This is all in maybe 25 hours of play, and within my tolerance levels. I save often by default in Bethesda titles.

I've been jumped by one of the new Diverse Dragons, and it looked pretty good. A Crystal dragon - I'm assuming it's not from the base game - attacked me in the wilderness on my way to defeat a bandit chief. I'd like to say I used my cunning and mastery of arms to defeat it, but I think the small group of Necromancers it landed on did almost all of the work for me, and then I finished them off. It had nasty cold breath that I used trees to deflect, and then I'd pop out and snipe it with my bow.

I did get a horse, and as advertised in Better Horses, it runs forever and is more useful for getting me places than my own two feet. It only engaged in combat when it was attacked, and when it did, it destroyed what hit it. That said, I miss picking flowers and being more involved with the landscape - so after a few test rides, I put the horse in a stable and left it there. I now only pull it out when I'm going to travel to a known location from a known location, if that makes sense. When I go into the unknown, I like to be agile and unfettered.

Ordinator keeps impressing as I gain levels. I'm up to level 24 now, with 75 in Smithing, ~60 in Sneak (out of habit, Sneak is almost like my default movement, even if I don't need to), 40 in Light Armor, mid-40's in Bows/Lockpicks, and ~30 in One-Handed/Block. I like that Light Armor includes a skill that siphons off a little experience and slowly increases itself over time - meaning you don't need to sit there and let yourself get beaten to raise up armor skill. All you need to do is have it on and do everything else, and it goes up slowly. I haven't even looked at Heavy Armor to see if it has an equivelant, but I'd bet it does. I really like the Bear Trap and Trip Wire skills (from Sneak and Lockpick). Put together I can plan a really nice, deadly ambush. Snipe, draw attention, let the traps kill/maim, and then finish off anyone that falls over the wire. On the whole, you generally only need 2-4 points in any given skill to make it "worth" using - and everything in the tree above that is for people who want to specialize in that skill. The exception so far seems to be Smithing - you must climb the tree to open each type of material. You've really got to want to make and improve your own gear to invest in it. Even Alchemy doesn't have that kind of requirement, and an investment of 4 points gives you a good, rounded start.

Wildcat also continues to be fun, with melee combat being pretty dangerous - especially against more than one foe. A 2v1 fight has yet to go my way unless the enemies were really weak to begin with, or I had some kind of edge.

I really like the diverse Bandits in OBIS. I never know what I'm going to find, and it's not because their equipment is overpowered (thus making me overpowered). It's because they come in so many flavors and abilities that it's hard to find any fault - except that I did have to turn off the optional extra bandit spawns that I had turned on (it's off by default). The groups I was facing were just too numerous with it turned on. A large group of bandits with a couple archers, a couple mages, and a few fighters is more than enough to overwhelm me unless I take the time to whittle them down with stealth kills.

Ars Metallica continues as a nice Smithing mod. I don't feel a need to collect every scrap of weaponry and armor in the world - because I can make almost all of it myself. With 75 Smithing at level 24, I'm actually able to craft gear ahead of the game's difficulty curve. I opened up Glass - but could only find enough Malachite to make a Shield & Gauntlets.

I started Project AHO last night and am not entirely sold. I really don't like that I'm locked in and can't do anything else until it's done. That's really my only gripe. See spoiler below for details on how the mod plays out (as far as I'm into it).

Spoiler:

Project AHO. You're given a pop-up message at level 15 to start this mod, which has a fair amount of content built into it and I've read that it concludes with an interesting player home being granted to you based on your choices. If you accept the starter message, you'll eventually be accosted by an Orc (when I went to Falkreath for me, at least) that asks you if if you'll be his cult's guide - and if you agree, you're knocked out, stripped down (followers disbanded), and brought to a slave auction to be sold along with other slaves.

This intro sequence took too long (IMO), and throughout the entire auction one of the recorded voices kept looping the same loud comment over and over every 30 seconds, annoying me. After the auction, you're forced into servitude and bafflingly turned loose and ignored by your new owner.

Running around in rags didn't sit well with me, so I immediately put my Sneak and Smithing expertise to work and stripped every home of all crafting materials, brought them to the Smelter, created a pile of Ingots, and then went to work crafting myself a suit of armor, shield, and weapon that was almost as good as what they took from me. Not that I'd expect them to, but no one in the town batted an eye at a brand new slave that was wearing rags an hour ago suddenly sporting pristine Bosmer Elven Armor and an extremely deadly Dwemer Hand-axe. Even if they inspect me, none of it appears to be stolen, because it's all made from stolen stuff I melted down into materials - though, because I'm a pack-rat, I've also got a hundred stolen books on me and a mountain of useless stuff that I expect I'll need to dump into a chest and forget about soon enough.

Having been freshly outfitted, I started looking around and was offered a number of basic Fed-Ex quests by the population. I've got a small pile of them I'm working through. Some of them have follow-up fragments.

The first quest I tried was to test a spell scroll for a magical experimenter. Inexplicably, he's enlisted the help of a brand new slave he doesn't own to help him, and offered to share what he learns with me as a reward. The scroll he gave me to test flashed me to a devastated copy of the world I was just in - charred bodies, ruined landscapes... and that lasted long enough to be creepy before it flashed me back. I have a second scroll from him to try, but haven't yet.

At one point, one of those fragments led me to an Orc that wanted to go drinking with me, to divulge his life story. Me, a brand new slave, and this guy buys us round after round until we're both staggering drunk. I woke up in the farm district and struggled through the inexplicably huge trees (Simply Bigger Trees) that the mod designers never accounted for. I mean, these trees sprouted through bridges and houses.

That's as far as I've made it. So far, it's all been running around with zero combat - so maybe I didn't need any armor or weapons to get by and could have expedited my trip by just getting right into the quests. It would have saved a lot of time, but I felt pretty naked.

There's a pile of audio they recorded for the characters - some of it is "over the top" or annoying and some of it is pretty good. The general design is great, and there's a lot of detail to take in. They also made a number of books and notes to find and read so you can piece together the backstory of the area better.

[Tampa_Gamer]

Just reporting in for a status update, I did find time here and there this weekend to start implementing a new modding build/setup around Skryim SE/MO2. Since that S.T.E.P. page I mentioned a few posts up already had 90% of the mods I wanted to incorporate (and 20+ hours of install video instructions as well, I bit. To say that their attention to detail is incredible would be an understatement and every day the authors are comparing, testing and change their guide (just look at the change log). So I am relying on their hard work to install the 450+ recommended mods. This is by far the most challenging mod setup I have ever tried to complete (yes, I am a glutton for punishment). I am about 8-10 hours in and probably at about 30% finished with load-out/testing. I am using MO2's profile feature to save each grouping of mods as a separate build layer so I can peel it back if I run into problems (which I have just because I only try this about once every 12-18 months). Whoever initially stated that Skyrim is 90% modding and 10% is playing is certainly correct in my case!!

I appreciate the reports of "mods in use" Paingod - making sure the mod is actually running in the game correctly and tweaked to a player's particular play style is something that often gets lost in the zeal to add more mods.

[Paingod]

...install the 450+ recommended mods...

... actually, that's not even big enough wide-eyed reaction.

I mean ... wow. 60+ mods on my install cover a wide array of game mechanics and visuals. Are there like 350+ "location & quest" mods you're adding?

[Blackhawk]

A lot of them are visuals. STEP really goes into the nitty-gritty on that. I did the STEP core myself, plus my own mix. I don't know how many actual mods I installed, but I hit the limit of 255 plugin files, so well over that (many graphics mods don't use plugin files, while a few other mods use multiples.)

[Paingod]

Call me a heathen, but I just don't think Skyrim SE needs mountains of visual help. Graphics in gaming aren't the end-all for me. Sure, I installed a few spruce-up mods that Madmarcus used, and would have likely done that on my own - but I'd never run a 20-hour precarious modding process to make the game 5% prettier (or whatever the end result is). I need to go find some before/after shots.

[Tampa_Gamer]

Oh, I agree Paingod. I am not usually a graphics whore, but I am interested in the portion of the project that gets Legend of the Dragonborn working with the other core mods I did want to add (and the special patches/merges they made to accomplish that).

Since I am re-learning how to use the modding tools to add/clean/strip the mods as they go into MO2 to make the build stable, I am following the guide at the moment to the letter (I am too chicken/newb to do otherwise). I have not doubt that I will tire of adding mods such as ("Actors Don't Chew with their mouths open") and in the end I will have a build more like what Blackhawk mentioned (simply using S.T.E.P. as a hopefully stable base).

The good news, is that the Skyrim SE mod community finally seems to be taking off and many of the mod authors are finally updating their mods or turning them over to those that want to continue (which wasn't happening yet six months ago).

[Paingod]

Still. The OMG of going through that all. When you've got it built and running flawlessly, package it up as a single 23GB ESP file so you never need to do it again. I'd (borrow) that for a dollar.

Something I need to do, I think, is go back to LOOT and look at "Dirty" files. I did get a lot of warnings to clean up files in some places, but figured it was just clutter I could ignore. Looking at those S.T.E.P. instructions, they direct you to clean things up, so there must be some benefit. Maybe that'll solve my quirky Shouts and missing Mud Crabs? Who knows.

[Daehawk]

I think I had over 80 mods working great in SE. Now there are even more. You can see the pics I posted of my build a few pages back.

[Blackhawk]

Call me a heathen, but I just don't think Skyrim SE needs mountains of visual help.

I agree. To me, modding in Bethesda games isn't about getting the best possible visuals, it is about customizing the visuals. Some graphics mods turn Skyrim beautiful, green, and fantastic. Some turn it hyper realistic. Some turn it dull and dreary. Some make it shiny and new, while some turn it old and worn. I love being able to make the world look exactly the way I want it to look. More snow, colder, less snow, sunnier, washed out Nordic lighting, saturated temperate lighting. You get the idea.

Still. The OMG of going through that all. When you've got it built and running flawlessly, package it up as a single 23GB ESP file so you never need to do it again. I'd (borrow) that for a dollar.

The problem with that is that you'd never be able to update it again without going through the whole process from scratch.

[morlac]

Still. The OMG of going through that all. When you've got it built and running flawlessly, package it up as a single 23GB ESP file so you never need to do it again. I'd (borrow) that for a dollar.

A dollar?, I'd pay $50 for someone to build me a non crashing mod build of my dreams I could load of a jump drive. I have wasted a year of my life modding Bethesda games and I may be growing weary of it. I do have fun with it right up until I'm finally satisfied and break it accidentally.

[Fardaza]

Thanks to Madmarcus and Paingod!

I'm trying most of your suggestions. I haven't played in several months. I still haven't finished the initial Helgen run. I load several mods, play a couple minutes, quit, and load some more.

I'm having 2 issues though. Can you help?

1- SkyUI - When I opened it for the first time, the buttons along the bottom I could click had ??? in them instead of "Read", etc. They still worked if I clicked on them, but that works only because I remember what they should say.

2- LOOT won't even open for me! I've installed, deleted, and reinstalled several times now. I think I accidentally changed the default install directory. Does that make a difference? Where should I install LOOT? I double-click the desktop icon, click the Start menu icon, and even check the "Launch LOOT on install" button. None of them work. I get the little "wait while we open this program" spinning circle where my cursor was and then ... nothing. The program never launches. Any ideas? I posted on the Nexus about this yesterday but have received no response as yet.

Thanks for your lists and assistance!

[Paingod]

SkyUI - When I opened it for the first time, the buttons along the bottom I could click had ??? in them instead of "Read", etc. They still worked if I clicked on them, but that works only because I remember what they should say.

My best guess here is to make sure SkyUI is somewhere WAY down your load order, near the bottom. Something is clogging it and it's not getting what it wants. I think mine is like 6th from last, with a couple "Add-On" patches below it. It can be pretty touchy. If you can get LOOT running, it might automatically fix this issue when it sorts load order based on conflicts.

If you can't get LOOT running, you can manually adjust load orders in Skyrim's mod menus, inside the System menu when you hit 'Esc' ... I love that I have to scroll down to see all the menu options despite there being ample space to see them all at once.

LOOT won't even open for me! I've installed, deleted, and reinstalled several times now. I think I accidentally changed the default install directory. Does that make a difference? Where should I install LOOT?

Doesn't open as in it won't even launch, or doesn't open as in it doesn't open Skyrim's mod list? The default path for me is C:\Program Files (x86)\LOOT.

A possible fix if LOOT isn't loading. After uninstalling, you may need to manually purge the remaining local files before re-installing.

I seem to have fixed my issue by deleting the LOOT folder located in %LOCALAPPDATA%
Try deleting it and running LOOT once again.

I f***ing love you for this; Thank you sooooo much !!!!!

I think once LOOT is running right, it will use whatever install path is in your Registry for Skyrim to find it, so even if you've changed it, it will find Skyrim SE. I vaguely recall it firing up empty the first time for me and I had to do a search and poke around in the menus before it found my Skyrim SE mods. After that, it always knew where they were. The UI for this app isn't massively intuitive, though. I don't have it in front of me to try and walk you through it.

A dollar?

Bad Robocop (1987) reference.

Back on mods - Project AHO. My entire game last night was spent just working through the content. Side quest after side quest. I'm getting used to the town setup and getting around better, but it's a dense cluster with lots of things to get snagged on. A couple problems with quests have popped up where you had to make a logical leap to succeed. Spoilers on the missions and other thoughts.

Spoiler:

First - "Find Bug Glands" - it gives me five map waypoints to inspect. Typically this means "Look at the waypoint" and I circled them three times before getting frustrated and accidentally stumbling on the item I needed to find - which wasn't AT the waypoint, but off to the side. The quest should read "Look around the area" and not "Inspect the waypoint". The objective wasn't highlighted and didn't call attention to itself. I just happened to notice it as I got annoyed and started looking around for anything else to use and walked over to see what it was. An innocuous little pot on a ledge, easily missed. Bingo. It doesn't help that each waypoint is placed directly over an object that looks like you might be able to interact with it to "Inspect" it - but none of them lit up when I got close.

Second - "Find a ring in a haystack" - You're told to search the haystack for a ring. Funny. The haystack can be interacted with over and over. Initially I assumed this was a matter of searching a set number of times until it turned up. When that failed I walked around looking for an alternate hay stack to search. When that failed, I searched it some more. When I got frustrated with that, I pulled out my starting Flame spell and angrily shot fire at the hay stack. Much to my surprise, it caught fire and burned away - leaving just a ring in the ash pile. Does anything else literally burn down in this game? I don't remember ever setting anything else on fire. It was a logical choice, but not one you'd normally make in a game where the environment is largely immune to destruction. I was so unamused by the deviation in theme, that I turned around and threw the ring at the quest-giver without ever checking to see if I'd want to secretly keep it, which is out of character for me.

So - kudos for being different, but thumbs down for not even hinting at what really needs to be done with these. Both times I only succeeded because I got frustrated.

Other that quests, there's an interesting "side game" of collecting chess pieces and returning them to a chess board. I'm not sure why I'm doing this, but I'm almost done and need to search for another 5 or 6 pieces. There's also an opportunity to get a really nice bow that knocks anything I've found so far into a well. My bow damage went from 26 to 40. I'm almost afraid that it'll be overpowered when I get out of here, given my stealth bow shots do x2.5 damage + 20% if the target is at full health.

Along the possibly "Main" story, I'm at a point where I'm following my "owner" into a dungeon to protect him. At the start of this, he throws a suit of mixed heavy & light armor at me and a bow that's inferior to the one I just got from another quest before this. I suppose that this confirms that I didn't need to spend all that time stealing and making my stuff again.

On the downside, the voice acting - while commendable - is inconsistent and can be jarring when you talk to one person and then another. It sounds very much like a half dozen people with varying vocal talent and varying sound equipment and varying software collaborated to make it. If would be less jarring if all three problems weren't in play. It is a good effort, though, and in a free mod.

[Fardaza]

LOOT won't even launch for me. I have never been able to get the program to run. I tried the uninstall LOCALAPPDATA approach, and that didn't work either.

SkyUI says that SKSE64 is not running. I have it installed though and can run it whenever I want to using its own icon.

This is what I don't understand. I seem to have 3 choices:
1) I can run Skyrim using its own desktop icon.
2) I can run Skyrim by SKSE's desktop icon.
3) I can run Skyrim through NMM's launch tab.

I've been using the 3rd choice since it has all my mods in its chosen order. I have no way of knowing if all my mods are working if I launch through SKSE. Also, SKSE does not appear anywhere in NMM's lists.

What am I missing?

[Paingod]

SKSE64 was an independent download for me that I installed into Skyrim's base folder in \Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim SE. I "Launch" Skyrim using SKSE64. It flickers a command window as it loads, and then moves on to the Skyrim load screen. SkyUI doesn't complain after that. If I run Skyrim through Steam or NMM, SkyUI complains. It basically establishes a shell that Skyrim runs inside of that allows scripts to run correctly, which SkyUI and a few other mods require.

Skyrim's load order doesn't change unless you tell it to - either through NMM, LOOT, Mod Organizer, or Skyrim's own MCM (Mod Control Menu, in System, after starting the game up). If you've set your order in NMM, it should be preserved when you launch the game with SKSE64.

The version of SKSE available through Steam is not the 64-bit version SkyUI needs for Skyrim SE.

LOOT won't even launch for me. I have never been able to get the program to run. I tried the uninstall LOCALAPPDATA approach, and that didn't work either.

To be clear...

• Control Panel
• Programs
• Uninstall LOOT
• Go to C:\Users\YourUser\AppData\Local
• Delete any LOOT folders you see there
• Reboot
• Install LOOT cleanly in default location
• LOOT still doesn't load

If that's the case, it'll need more research than I did before.

[Tampa_Gamer]

Just to add to Paingod's post, here is a way to see if SKSE is actually running correctly in Skyrim SE:

At the title/menu screen:

(1) Press the console key (` or ~ key depending on your setup); and

(2) there should now be a small command prompt in the lower left corner (it may be hard to see), type in the command "getskseversion" without the quotes.

As of right now it should read version 2.0.7, if not reinstall it.

[Blackhawk]

3) I can run Skyrim through NMM's launch tab.

I've been using the 3rd choice since it has all my mods in its chosen order. I have no way of knowing if all my mods are working if I launch through SKSE. Also, SKSE does not appear anywhere in NMM's lists.

What am I missing?

If you launch with the regular executables, SKSE will not function. You have to launch through skseloader.exe instead. If installed, it should appear in your Skyrim root directory (/skyrim/ , not in Data Files or anywhere else.) It will not show up in NMM's list. You can either create a shortcut to it directly, or through NMM's launch tag by clicking the little down arrow and choose 'Launch SKSE'.


And delete the desktop icon installed with the game. You do not want the default launcher to open. It can reset config files.

[Fardaza]

I haven't tried to get LOOT working yet. I'll try again later.

However, I solved my other problem by just deactivating SkyUI. Launching through SKSE seems to work fine now!

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Now that I have all the mods installed, I'll start a new game with the character I want to play. Ordinator sure adds a LOT! I don't know what to try first!

[Paingod]

As long as it makes you happy.

SkyUI is an "essential" for me on the computer. I don't know if I could enjoy the game with the default UI that was designed for controllers.

More on Project AHO. TL;DR - It's a tough, beautiful mod with no quick escape.

Spoiler:

So last night I finished "Chapter 2" of Project AHO - which resulted in me being freed as a slave. It was almost anti-climatic, but there was a boss battle. After going down into a dungeon and turning right (instead of left), we went on to plunder a Dwemer library. At the end, we (me and two NPC's) were set upon by a huge Dwemer construct. I don't know if it's unique to Project AHO, but I've never seen it before. It kind of looked like a 12 foot tall Big Daddy and was called a Prowler. That, along with half a dozen Centurions in two waves (3 each time) rolled over - and my only objective was to survive. Since the NPC's can't die, I could have stayed hidden through the whole fight, but that didn't seem right. I had to play this fight three times to survive it while helping. The Prowler hits like a Mack Truck. Even with 200 health and over 200 total armor, I was dead in two hits.

After the fight I ran into a possibly broken quest, where one of the NPC's that helped in that fight directed me to go find Dwemer plans & books in a vault and return them to him. I did - but he won't talk about them and won't look at them. I haven't tried throwing them out yet, but they're not zero-weight things, so I need to be rid of them somehow.

Upon returning to town, I was directed to talk with the leader and she went on about how my master was going to get them all killed with his insane quest for Dwemer power, so she set me free and sent me on an insane quest for Dwemer power.

At this point I got back all the gear I had on me when I was abducted, and headed back down into the ruins. This time I went left instead of right, and it opens a whole other can of worms. Interspersed among the skeleton guardians are pressure plates. So. Many. Pressure. Plates. Everywhere. Most of them don't trigger traps - instead they drop Centurions right on top or behind you. Why didn't I have the sneak ability to not set off pressure plates? Oh, yeah - Ordinator. Why not just Sneak past the Centurions? They apparently have excellent vision and can see me when most things wouldn't.

It was a LONG night of sneaking and skirmishing with automatons that can easily kick my ass. Survival required two things. Health potions and immaculate timing with my shield/axe. If I blocked just at the right time, I could swing/block/swing/block/swing/block and survive a one on one fight. If I failed to block, I was toast. As an added bonus, several of the pressure plate traps dropped two or three Centurions on you - meaning I'd just reload. I reloaded a lot. Because my foot slipped.

Now, the authors did something fun - too. They buried a lot of the pressure plates. They were either partially obscured by rubble or immersed in flowing water. You really had to be on the ball. Sometimes just the edge was visible to warn you.

My bow was my best friend. I did a LOT of hit and hide attacks. A LOT. The whole night.

Treasure everywhere. Most of it was in the form of Dwemer relics - bits and pieces. Lots of Dwemer armor and weapons. Lots of potions, soul gems, and gold. Lots of various refined ores. I had to constantly shed weight to pick up better things and am at a point where there's nothing left I want to shed and I badly need to find a storage chest I can rely on. I have expensive stolen loot in quantities that will make the thieves guild weep when I get to them. I have piles of alchemy ingredients. Mountains of crafting supplies. Absolutely nowhere to store it.

I spent so long in the dungeon that my character became not just a little fatigued, but downright tired (iNeed). Food and water ran out. My last act before quitting for the night was to crawl out of that dungeon, victorious, mission accomplished, with the next quest in my queue and a desperate need for me (my character and me personally) to go to bed. I don't know how much longer I have in this mod before I can cross it off, but I feel like I'm close to done.

I don't know how well Centurions and Prowlers scale with level - if at all. If I had been "abducted" at level 15 instead of ~24, I don't think I would have done so well down there. If I didn't have a high Sneak and Bow, I wouldn't have done very well down there. I can't imagine how a dedicated low-level Mage could survive.

One spoiler - well, something that spoiled the game a little. They included little trophies that boost all of your skills by one point when you pick them up. I've found three or four of them so far. I don't care for it, as it feels a little like cheating, but I still collected them because they're valuable.

Another spoiler - the mod includes "Sealed Spells" that can be unlocked using Soul Gems at a mystical typewriter in the library. It's a neat concept, but turns out it's just a quick way to stock up on high-end spells for free. When you use the typewriter, you insert (expend) one spell cube of the appropriate school, and one soul gem that matches the level of the spell. If you want a high level spell, you spend a Grand soul gem. First-level spells used up Common or Petty soul gems. I don't think the gems need to be filled to be used. Sounds neat - but there's a LOT of spell cubes and a LOT of soul gems. This equates to a LOT of free spells to pick up. I think the mod only pulls from the vanilla list, though, so with Apocalypse, there are still a lot of other spells to find and buy. Added bonus: Use the typewriter too many times, and a Prowler comes to get you. If you're sneaky with a bow, he's totally killable in the right space.

A last spoiler. Something I should have remembered. The mod authors included a custom companion. I never thought to use it, because when I got it I basically said "Oh, yeah. No. I'm good." - it's a Spriggan/Zombie crossbreed thing. Dripping wet with blood and viscera, unable to communicate - but it wanted to follow me and obey me when I fed it some raw meat. This might have been helpful against the Centurions. I assume it's a permanent companion as I was able to direct it as though I would Lydia. I'm not going to subject the outside world to it, though. It wouldn't be very immersive to have this literal walking horror moving freely through towns and having absolutely no one vomiting on the sidewalk and running in terror.

Now, the good stuff - to the mod author's credit, they have created a vast and very visually interesting space in this Dwemer dungeon. While I griped that the town was a cluttered mess, the dungeon is a spectacular labyrinth with fantastic sights at the end of every precarious, grueling hallway. Vast, open chambers with metallic/organic root systems suspending huge Dwemer constructs. Massive, beautifully crafted underwater domes with fish swimming outside. Possibly some of the best scenery I've encountered in the game to date. You just have to fight tooth and nail to see it.

Before I start the next stage, I'm going to see if I can leave the town now that I'm free, so I can unload my inventory in Breezehome. I'm now level 30, too - so my first trip out will also trigger the Vampire invasion. Yay!

[Paingod]

The conclusion of Project AHO. TL;DR - It's a long, ambitious mod with inconsistent but overall good voice acting included, and adds a very unique player home.

Spoiler:

Project AHO, finished over the weekend. After everything we went through, the scholar I worked with tasks me with eliminating my former master - who has gone quite mad. It's a simple task, and I'm saved from being a murderer by simply telling the old man that I'm a spy - where he sets upon me and dies unremarkably.

After that is a set of the grandest FedEx quests I've ever seen - sending me across the map four or five times in rapid succession. As a very last step, I bring parts the scholar needs to finish AHO - including two power cores from the aforementioned Prowlers (glad I looted and saved them while exploring). With everything in place, I have to trek across the world again and meet the scholar at a Dwemer 'launch pad' ... he informs me that while AHO is his life's work, he's suddenly bored with it, so here's the key.

Inside, AHO is a spacious and unique player home. Outside, it's a giant sphere that hovers at specific Dwemer ruins. It can be activated to transport you to one of five locations, 4 of them having map markers and one that's just in the middle of nowhere with no map markers and would be difficult to locate again. Crafting stations and storage for everything, lighting controls, and a pool. It's a nice house that gives you "immersive" access to four corners of the map.

Having played through AHO, I'm considering re-building my old Morrowind home. It was a Dwemer cube, and activating it brought you through a portal to the inter-dimensional space the house occupied. Essentially, you always had your home with you in your pocket. Activating it inside the home (IIRC) teleported you back to where you left. Or maybe you had to Mark/Recall to get back. I can't remember. It's been a very long time.

At any rate, AHO is complete and I'm Level 34 and back to moving through the Dark Brotherhood before becoming a member of the Thieves' Guild.

2018-08-21 - After completing AHO, I toyed around with the "ship" and eventually parked it and wandered away. While neat, I just don't need it as a home and it's extra-complicated to get to merchants from wilderness locations. I spent last night advancing the Dark Brotherhood plot and am about to assassinate the Emperor. On the modding side, my desire to make my own home increases. I'll need to research and find out if there is an equivalent Mark/Recall option in Skyrim SE so I can have a "Cube" I activate to bring me home and then return to where I left. The other "must" for research is to find out how to make an item "invisible" to the cursor, so mousing over it doesn't bring it up as a name. I like decorative clutter, but I don't want to have to dance around it to click on storage containers. That was a problem in my original Skyrim home.

2018-08-27 - Up to level 41 now, and the only thing I'm still really noticing is Ordinator (Skills) & Apocalyse (Spells). Most of the other mods fall into the background and become part of the game, but Ordinator changes the skill trees so fundamentally that it's almost like a different game. Foes have become pretty difficult to overcome in numbers, and sneak/bow kills are kind of easy. I've fallen back on casting and am working up Conjuration and Illusion. I expend a lot of summoned allies now in clearing a Bandit fort. Apocalypse adds so much flavor to other classes of spells that I don't always know where to start. I summon a Daedra Lord with my right hand, and then create an illusionary 1HP clone of an enemy with the other. Sneaking is only good as long as I summon the Daedra around a corner or down a long hallway. I only recently got to a point where Ordinator turned my basic Atronauch spells into Greater versions. Coupled with dual-casting to enhance them, it's pretty powerful. At any rate - still enjoying Skyrim, and I've got 100 side quests to tend to.

2018-08-28 - Last night I discovered the real drawback to iNeed. You've got a set amount of time before you become fatigued. Every layer of fatigue slows down skill growth - making it harder to level up if you're tired. The functional outcome is needing to carry around a tent at all times and rest after every fast travel for "peak" performance if you're so inclined. There's a HUGE difference between trying to gain skill with a 70% penalty and being fully rested. I learned this the easy way by forgetting to sleep before I went on an Alchemy bender and wondered why on earth my skill levels were crawling up. I was severely fatigued and losing 70% of all skill gains.

[Daehawk]

Still bothering me I had such a perfect running and beautiful game ready to play when I got to it with all those mods. Oh well. Maybe one day Ill redo it all. Maybe not.

Heres a 5 things you may not know you could do differently in the game.

[Dave Allen]

Last night I discovered the real drawback to iNeed. You've got a set amount of time before you become fatigued. Every layer of fatigue slows down skill growth - making it harder to level up if you're tired.

There's a slider in MCM to adjust the fatigue rate, or (more realistically) on the same page tweak the "Set Timescale" for slower days.
I'm having more fun than any other run I can remember. I think that getting a grip on AH Hotkeys has a lot to do with it.

[Daehawk]

It upsets me to look back a couple pages at my pics I took of my modded build. It was ready to play and was perfect. Makes me think of doing it again sometime.

[Dave Allen]

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a spell/skill that lets me "sniff" things out in a ~50' radius around me. This is a "Power" and not a "Spell" - meaning I can cast it with no hands. The light goes dark a little and people show up as wavering gas clouds, collectible ingredients show as small purple clouds, corpses are bright pink. Very useful for seeing around corners and through walls to plan ambushes - and finding bodies in fields of grass. It works well with being a trap-laying-sneak-archer. I just don't know where it came from. It wasn't there a couple days ago, so it was in a book I read or a skill I acquired, but I don't know which mod put it there.

That would be Campfire.

I'm attempting to accomplish three things in this current play-through:
1) Complete 72 of the 75 Steam achievements. (so far 9)
2) Complete 451 of the 465 scripted, base quests. (so far 14)
3) Do these two things without killing any people. (so far 0)

Possible? Sure.
But the real will-to-succeed lies in not touching any of the other 377 games in my Steam account, or browsing the internet.
I mean I'm 64 - and I only have about 3 hours per day computer time. How long will I need to live?

Anyway, here's my alter ego.

[Alefroth]

Don't any of the achievements or quests require killing people?

[Dave Allen]

Don't any of the achievements or quests require killing people?

I don't think so.
I did discover that randomly-generated "radiant" quests could include "kill such-n-such bandit leader", but these quests are not scripted ones and are outside the scope of my challenge.

[edit] Some of the Dark Brotherhood quests cannot be done without killing people. The primary Dark Brotherhood questline consists of fourteen quests, and three achievements are unlocked by the guild's quests. Also, I'll have to choose the negotiate peace path in the civil war if I don't want a body count. So it appears I need to revise my goals a tad.

[Daehawk]

Saw a review of a nice follower...Lucien - Fully Voiced Follower

[Zork]

Play Enderal.

I thought it was a much better story than the Skyrim's.

A big +1 to this! I've sunk about 30 hours into it over the past week and am loving it!

Happy gaming!

-Zork

[Skinypupy]

Funny to see this pop up, as I've been spending the last few weeks getting back into Skyrim on Switch. It's vanilla, but I'm having an absolute blast playing through it all again. Going with a Battlemage this time, slinging Destruction spells in my left hand while using a sword in my right. It's a very different style of play than I've tried previously, and I'm really enjoying it.

I'm about 35 hours in. I'm doing a few things very different this time, which has really made things feel fresh and interesting:

- I sided with the Imperials. In my 4 previous playthroughs, I always fell in line with the Stormcloaks. Moving through the world from the Imperial perspective has a very different feel to it.
- I'm mostly ignoring the main quest, and focusing on other stuff. I've progressed both the Mage's College and Thieves Guild further than any previous attempt. I'm grabbing whatever quest feels interesting to me at that time, or simply jumping out in the world to explore. Playing in this unstructured way is wildly different than how I typically play RPG's (I'm very much a "do quest A, then quest B, then quest C" type of gamer), and it's been surprisingly fun.
- I have leveled up both Armor Smithing and Enchanting. I could never quite wrap my head around either of these skills on my previous playthroughs. Made a dedicated effort to figure it out this time, and creating/enchanting my own gear (instead of buying or scavenging stuff) makes me feel more connected to my character.
- I'm not min/maxing at all. Rather, I just dialed down the difficulty and am just doing what I feel my character would naturally do. I'm sure it's causing me to not level up nearly as quickly, but it's a lot more fun.

Crazy how I keep coming back to this game, even with everything else that's out there. They did such a great job of nailing the exploring/questing/character development balance.

[Chrisoc13]

I think I'm gonna try it on switch. Haven't played it in years, and played on Xbox last time but switch would be good.

[rittchard]

Play Enderal.

I thought it was a much better story than the Skyrim's.

A big +1 to this! I've sunk about 30 hours into it over the past week and am loving it!

Happy gaming!

-Zork

I was debating whether to try the Switch version or not, but then I saw this note. That mod looks pretty incredible, I don't think I can resist trying it out. I can't believe how much work these guys did and all for free?

[Skinypupy]

Play Enderal.

I thought it was a much better story than the Skyrim's.

A big +1 to this! I've sunk about 30 hours into it over the past week and am loving it!

Happy gaming!

-Zork

I was debating whether to try the Switch version or not, but then I saw this note. That mod looks pretty incredible, I don't think I can resist trying it out. I can't believe how much work these guys did and all for free?

The Switch version simply comes down to portability. If that's a factor, then the Switch version is great. I've said it before, but the ability to play on an airplane or hotel is really, really awesome for us frequent fliers.

If portability is not a consideration, then I'd probably recommend PC. Unless you're like me, and end up spending more time fiddling with mods than you do actually playing the game.

[TheMix]

The bonus to Enderal is that it's one mod. It also installs in a separate location. So you don't lose your Skyrim stuff. You can revert back easily at any time.