Hello

I have done a reinstall of my computer and have now installed Skyrim. My question is as the topic says: "How's the best way to install mods?"

I want to do this right from the beginning.

Also, i have this mod Skills Level Faster: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=8827 and i wonder if there is a mod on Nexus that does the same thing, or almost the same thing.

I prefer to use NMM.

This is my mod list, not my load order. Nothing is installed right now at the moment.

In my opinion, Manually.

Download the 7z/zip/rar file

Put it in it's own folder in your Mods folder

Unzip it there

Copy it into DATA

That way, you always have a backup and can see what needs to be manually uninstalled.

Install the USKP Unofficial patches and those for any DLC you have first.

Sort with BOSS, make corrections based on your experience of where BOSS gets it wrong and you are set to go.

Keep a copy of Plugins.txt in something like Excel, Word or Notepad, so that you can refer to it when you add mods and re-sort with BOSS.

Special care has to be taken when using several different loose file animation, mesh and texture mods so you do not use things that overlap and overwrite resources from another mod. INSTALLATION order matters here, more than load order, especially if the mod has no esp.

EG, one version of the excellent Pocket Empire Builder contained cubemaps for ore veins which overwrote the modified ore vein cubemaps for the equally excellent Glowing Ore Veins mod - so I had to re-install Glowing Ore Veins.

If the mod has other non-esp/bsa elements like a dll, hvk file, modified swf etc, put it where the mod author says.

~.~

P.S. You may also want to use Wrye Bash to re-level levelled lists etc once all your mods are installed. I recently downloaded it but haven't used it yet, so I can't help with that.

I personally use WryeBash for installing mods. It allows you to change the load order in cases where two or more mods change the same things. And the mods and all their contents can be easily removed in case of updates etc.

Wrye Bash for me too, specially if you have lots of loose files.

Imagine this situation: you install mod A, then mod B. Mod B overwrites some files from mod A. After a while, you decide that you liked mod A better so you want to uninstall B. With Wryebash, uninstalling B will not only delete B's files but, also, it will recover and install those files from mod A that had been overwriten.

edit: fixed misleading typo.

Never manual. Either Mod Organizer or WB these days.

You should install mods using a mod manager, to ensure mods with resource files in loose file format can be completely uninstall if necessary (or when updating). By 'mod manager', I don't mean the Steam Workshop, which is possibly a worse method of handling mod un/installation than manual un/installation even though the SW does not allow loose files. You should use either the NMM, the Mod Organizer, or Wrye Bash/BAINS.

No, if mod B overwrites files from mod A and you uninstall it with Wrye Bash, it updates affected mods automatically. It deletes the files from mod B and replaces the now missing files with the ones from mod A.

Sorry, my typing was faster than my thinking. What I meant was: it will recover and INSTALL those files from mod A that had been overwriten.