I'm reinstalling Skyrim and all my mods on a new computer. I've followed some of the STEP project recommendations. What I'd like to know is if you follow it and how closely you stick to their mod list? I had some that I liked before that weren't on their list and am doubtful about some of their other listed mods.

I don't follow STEP recommendations and I have no idea how closely my mod lists resemble theirs. I've never looked at their mod list.

I've never followed their mod list, but I have used their tutorials and considered recommendations.

Nope. Don't need anything they do. I get mods that appeal to me straight from Nexus, download them manually, install using NMM, and run LOOT to set load order.

I do not use it either. For me using mods are a personal experience and it is about finding mods that you want to use for a character or playthrough. Sometimes it is fun searching through all the mods and finding that one gem that not many people have used.

Nope, never used it, just download from Nexus (and a few others) and install. If you follow somebody else's guide you will always end up with somebody else's vision of what the game should be.

It's the same for me.

Pretty much I search through Nexus ( and all the mod's I have downloaded) for mod's that fit the next story I wish to tell. I have looked at the S.T.E.P. project and it's recommendations and I think those are some very nice list's... but I'd rather mess with it all myself.

STEP is great, especially if you are new to modding. It shows you all the important steps to properly set up your game. From cleaning the vanilla .esm files, to properly setting up ENBoost, to SKSE, showing some basic mods that should always be installed (like USLEEP), then showing how to install things like FNIS and DynDOLOD.


It is a fantastic learning tool if you don't know how to do all of this stuff. And it is a great base of mods for you to add to.


If you are new to modding and don't know where to start, you can't really go wrong by following the STEP guide.


If you don't want to follow a mod guide, at least check out something like the /r/skyrimmods https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/wiki/beginners_guide to learn the basic steps for modding.


Full disclosure: I am a moderator on the STEP forums.

I always use STEP as my base install and then tweak on top of that. It's an excellent base even for more experienced mod-users. It isn't too intrusive and there are several mods and versions of mods that STEP uses that are lighter than the full-bore counterparts.

There are two pieces of advice I can give concerning STEP:

1. If you add to it, check your mod list closely for redundancy.


2. If any of your mods are updated, whether they are in the STEP list or not, you need to be careful about the esp/esm filenames required by the STEP patches. I THOUGHT we all learned back in the Morrowind days about changing filenames when updating mods, but apparently some folks never learn. The "recent" run of new "Legendary" mod versions makes me want to pull my hair out, sometimes. I get it if you think your mod *must* be used in a new game, but if it is possible to update during a single playthrough, why change the name?