The Still New What Did You Last Do Thread

[Kostov]

i've been totally obsessed with Skyrim lately, and i don't even own any of the addons or have used any mods for it yet. heaven forbid how obsessed i will be with the game when i actually DO use those things.

Many mods require DLCs, and even if you don't want to play them the mods use resources from the DLCs. I highly advise you purchase all of the available addons should you decide to mod.

That aside, here's a starter kit.

Mod Organizer (a mod manager good for use with Skyrim but I advise against using it with other Bethesda products): http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/1334

The unofficial patches, which I recommend to always use: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31255

More unofficial patches for when you purchase the DLCs: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23491
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25127
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31083

SkyUI, which contains the Mod Configuration menu (which is helpful for using any mods): http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3863
T3nd0s Skyrim Redone: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9286
Deadly Dragons: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3829
Epic Gameplay Overhaul: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52487
Frostfall: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/11163
Enhanced Lights and FX or Realistic Lighting Overhaul: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27043
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30450
Immersive HUD: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3222
Climates of Tamriel: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17802
Better Vampires (haven't tried it alot) if you want to play as a vampire: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9717
Moonlight Tales and Bloodmoon Rising if you want to play as a werewolf: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/35470
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/22611
Immersive Armors: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19733
Immersive Weapons: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27644
iNeed: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51473
Realistic Water Two: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/41076

All of these mods are combinable. If you want to start modding, watch this, and, if you decide to use Mod Organizer (which I recommend) this. I will be ready to help should you need any extra assistance, because I have lots of experience modding Skyrim and Bethesda's other games.

EDIT: I forgot SkyUI, how clumsy.

[Viscra Maelstrom]

can i still apply the patches to the game if i'm like 70+ hours into the game? or would they fuck up my saved file?

[Kostov]

I think everything except Epic Gameplay Overhaul are acceptable, but I recommend starting a new save.

[NeuralStunner]

I don't really have a lot of faith in total overhauls. I stick with smaller overhauls/tweaks that only change the sections of gameplay that I don't think are fine as they are.

You should definitely not miss out on the unofficial patches, though.

[Viscra Maelstrom]

"starting a new save?" you mean, load the game, then save another file immediately?

[NeuralStunner]

No, it means starting a new game/character entirely.

Things that are extensively modified can break horribly if they were already in use by a game. Your best bet for avoiding that is to make sure everything gets started up fresh.

[Viscra Maelstrom]

really? this thread seems to say it's okay to do so. notably, the part where he says "Yes. All of the unofficial patches come with scripts designed to go over the state of things we've fixed and make sure your save is up to date with those. You can install them at any point during your game, whether you've completed the entire main quest or you just left Helgen for the first time." however, there are 116 entries in the version history where the changes made are unable to be made retroactively... so maybe it's best to stay off from the patch until i HAVE completed the game and can start a new character.

[Dancso]

Just got my videogame released. Woo!
http://www.desura.com/games/system-recovery

[Nash]

I wouldn't worry too much about installing the Unofficial Skyrim patches mid-game. I have made a character on 11/11/11 and only installed the patches MUCH later. Game seems to be fine (and I STILL have that 11/11/11 character with UOP constantly kept updated; I just install newer versions over the old one and continue playing). Save game seems to be fine and bug-free, but then again I'm a very careful player (I role-play, don't start 20 quests in 1 go, play slowly etc).

As you have discovered, a small number of issues can't be retroactively fixed but again, I wouldn't worry too much about them; unless you know something messed in your game BIG TIME (which at this point having the Unofficial Patch or not isn't going to make any difference), this can safely be ignored.

Unofficial Patches for Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim/Fallouts is a must on the PC, IMO. I like my games vanilla but even then the Unofficial Patches are a minimum requirement for PC gameplay for me.

A caveat about Skyrim that is different than other Elder Scrolls game though - once you've installed a mod and saved your game, mod data is baked into your save forever, even if you've uninstalled the mod. So there's no way to really cleanly uninstall a mod from your save. And that junk data that gets baked into your save is just going to make your game worse and worse the more you play it. Best to create a pristine backup of your unmodded save game, and then when installing mods, create a new save file. If something messes up, you still have your pristine backup.

---

I have seen people making tools that allegedly can completely clean your saved games even after uninstalling a mod but I wouldn't count on them... backing up a pristine save is still the best IMO

For other huge overhaul/gameplay mods, I definitely don't recommend installing mid-game and just making a new character so that fresh data can be initialized.

[NeuralStunner]

A caveat about Skyrim that is different than other Elder Scrolls game though - once you've installed a mod and saved your game, mod data is baked into your save forever, even if you've uninstalled the mod.
[...]
I have seen people making tools that allegedly can completely clean your saved games even after uninstalling a mod but I wouldn't count on them... backing up a pristine save is still the best IMO

The main issue bloat is from old scripts. I have zero idea why they chose to do this, but Bethesda opted to save Papyrus chunks into the ESS. And yes, any tool that can remove these chunks is going to "help"... In that it'll shrink the ESS back down. I do know from experience that scripts which are replaced will update as soon as the save is loaded, so I still have no idea what they thought it would gain.

[Bitterman]

I've been working on a class PowerPoint for 5 hours, and I've finished one slide. What the heck am I doing?

[Viscra Maelstrom]

hmm, i'm gonna try applying the unofficial patch tomorrow then and see if things go well, then. after backing the saves up, of course. i'm not gonna bother modding the game until i've finished it though... seems kind of pointless to me to mod the fuck out of a game you haven't even finished yet.

the only thing that annoys me is that i only own the base game and not the one with all the addons bundled together, because i wasn't even planning to play the game as much as i've done now. now that i have played it, i'd like to try out the addons later on, but they cost several times as much money as the base game does.

[Captain J]

look, i made a artwork about meme.

[leileilol]

I also drew something, but unfortunately the proportions are really screwed because I used a huge canvas size and with a huge canvas, I can't sketch very well. This was all less than 5 hours, most of the time being coloring within the lines.

but there are three things i like about it - the face, the colors/shading and the filters i tacked on to make it look a bit more 'authentic' despite the proportions around the waist throwing that all out the window.


I've learned since. I'll just sketch on a small canvas, resample that up, and get lining.

(the reason this picture was done for two things: practice, and an OA3 map taking place in a bedroom of an otaku who is totally obsessed for this character so I have to adapt her to several styles of the medium. There will even be body pillows and mousepads. If I get enough time there could even be a drawn anime scene looping on the telly )

[The Zombie Killer]

Just programmed a third person camera (compatible with most mods) that allows quite a few neat features
You can set it so that the camera rotates, but the player doesn't
or you can set it so that the player will only rotate when doing a special action (firing or moving)

Commands:
chase_active [1, 0] enables/disables third person view
chase_smooth [1, 0] enables/disables camera smoothing (to account for the 35fps jerkiness)
chase_rotateplr [2, 1, 0]
0: The camera will rotate, but the player won't
1: The player and camera will rotate (like most ZDoom third person cameras)
2: The camera will rotate, but the player won't unless performing a special action (firing or moving)

Download