Advice for a returning player gone for 3 years : V

» Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:39 am

Hello all! I have been away for about 3 years and decided to get back into the beautiful modded world of Skyrim with my new pc. I have spent the last few days compiling a list of mods. My basic goal is to make Skyrim look better (not maxed though), and improve the vanilla gameplay. There are a few mods in here that might go beyond that but that is what I was looking for.

What I hope you can help with is as follows.

Is there a mod that does something on here better, or the same but with less of a performance hit.

Is there a mod that combines 2 or more of the mods below

Is there a mod I missed that will complete a group of mods (e.g. everything will be hd except for squirrels and they will stand out and break immersion)

Mods so far

Spoiler

Basics
Nexus Mod Manager
SKSE
Wyre Bash
Unofficial Patches (Skyrim, Dawnguard, Heathfire, Dragonborn)
BOSS

UI
SkyUI
iHUD
High Quality 3d Map
A Quality World Map

Textures
WATER
Lush Trees and Grass
SMIM
Enhanced Night Skyrim
Book Covers
Radiant and Unique Potions and Poisons and Booze Bottles
Better Dynamic Snow
Skyrim Distant Detail
Bethesda Hi-Res DLC Optimized Hybrid
RCRN

Performance
Skyrim Performance PLUS
Skyrim Project Optimization

Followers
Inigo
Amazing Follower Tweaks
Follower Dialogue Overhaul

Clothes, Armor and Weapons
Immersive Weapons
Immersive Armors
Cloaks of Skyrim
Wet and Cold (also wet and cold ash)
Unique Uniques
Apophysis Dragon Priest Masks

Creatures
Immersive Creatures
Deadly Dragons
Bellyaches New Dragon Species
Realistic Animals and Predators

NPC’s/Immersion
Guard Dialogue Overhaul
Wearable Lanterns
Interesting NPC’s
Inconsequential NPC’s
Immersive Patrols
Run For Your Lives
When Vampires Attack
Increased Merchant Gold Count
Footprints
Auto Unequip Ammo
Immersive Animations

Magic
Truly Balanced Destruction Magic
Better Wards
Skyrim Midas Magic
Apocalypse Spell Package
Lost Magic
Magic Duel
Thunderchild

Quests
Falskaar

Pretty
Detailed Faces v2
Detailed Lips
No More Blocky Faces
Detailed Bodies
Beards
Brows
Superior Lore-Friendly Hair

Misc
VioLens
Ultimate Combat
Skyrim Unbound
Convenient Horses
Glowing Ore Veins 300
Optimizer Textures
No Spinning Death Animation
Achieve That!
Dragon Cliff Manor (home)
Audio Overhaul
OneTweak
RaceMenu
Journal of the Dragonborn
Better Dynamic Snow

PC Specs

Spoiler

AMD FX 6300
Radeon 7870 2gb GDDR5
8gb ram
120GB SSD (about 65gb free)
Win 7 64bit

» Sun Nov 16, 2014 10:08 pm

I use Mod Organizer instead of NMM. I really like the profiles function it offers. Every character that you play can have a different mod configuration and it only needs to be set once. You can switch to a different character with a click of a button and have a completely different set of mods load. It can also be configured so that when you select a character you only see that character's saved games.

BOSS is, as I read somewhere "technically obsolete" use LOOT instead.

I use:

Rotating Quick Saves.

A Matter of Time

Two Rings

EZ2C Dialogue Menu

If you like Glowing Ore, you might also like Unread Books Glow.

Check out Immersive Armors and Immersive Weapons. They are big mods, as they introduce a whole lot of new content to the game, but I haven't seen any performance hit. They make new content available to NPCs as well so you won't see guards/bandits/citizens all wearing the same gear or using the same weapon.

» Mon Nov 17, 2014 3:22 am

Thanks for the suggestions!

I wasn't sure about BOSS/LOOT and google didn't turn up anything convincing either way.

I won't be using different mods for different characters, but the save game function sounds interesting. Are there any downsides to using Mod Organizer over NMM?

I did see the Unread Books Glow mod I'll have to check it out.

I do have Immersive Armors and Weapons on the list but it is a decent list and not organized super well