Modding is simply a series of baby steps. Being patient and taking things slow is considered a virtue. Once fans have successfully installed a couple of mods, the rest of the process becomes much easier. This guide has been expanded to give players a clearer roadmap when it comes to installing their very first mod.
It's highly recommended for a player who intends to install a lot of mods to begin with a fresh install. This is done in the interest of avoiding any possible incompatibilities as a result of the incoming mods.
How To Install Sseedit
It's also worth noting that players should not install Skyrim in either of the Program Files folders on their PC in order to avert weird error messages from popping up in the future. Ideally, Skyrim should be installed directly onto the hard drive rather than buried in some other unrelated folder.
Theoretically, mods can be installed directly into the game's Data folder. Never do this! Organizationally, this method quickly becomes unmanageable. Spotting incompatibilities and faulty load orders are next to impossible in this manner. Luckily, Skyrim possesses a handful of excellent mod managers that sort all of this confusing information quite nicely.
These two options are certainly the most user-friendly when it comes to installing a big list of mods. Mod managers provide a huge benefit. Individual mods can be activated or deactivated with a mouse click without going through the hassle of deleting each of the files in the Data folder.
This allows for greater experimentation as mods can be turned on or off with ease. As before, installing the mod manager itself should be done directly on the hard drive inside its own dedicated folder for the sake of clarity. Just follow the installation instructions and the mod manager will be up and running in no time!
Now that the mod manager is in place it's time to start installing those mods. Let's use Nexus Mods as an example since it's arguably the best place to find mods for Skyrim. The majority of mods on Nexus typically have two download options: Manuel or Mod Manager. Since the player should be using a mod manager, always select the latter option.
Doing so will link the mod manager with the Nexus site. Downloaded mods will place themselves inside the manager automatically. This eliminates the need to manually unzip a mod's files every time a new mod is downloaded. Be aware, however, that certain mods do need to be downloaded manually, like when installing the mod manager itself or modding utilities (more on that later).
A correct load order is absolutely imperative for a stable game. Mods that come into conflict with each other either won't work or will crash the game completely. Any player serious about modding should install the Load Order Optimization Tool, or LOOT. Drawing upon its own massive internal database, LOOT will automatically sort all of a player's mods into the correct load order. It's a fantastic tool that should always be run once all of a player's mods have been installed.
Thankfully, the modding community has come to the rescue. The first mod any beginner should install is the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch. This comprehensive mod fixes many of the bugs that Bethesda missed.
If you have UAC (User Account Control) in Windows (which you should), you should not install Skyrim in the Program Files directory . Windows UAC will interfere with most skyrim utilities that need to write to the Skyrim folder.
Many people use C:/Games/ or install on a second drive. It is recommend to keep Skyrim itself and all installed mods on an SSD if you are able to. It does not need to be on the same drive as your OS but since most people only have the one SSD it likely will be.
If you are like most people Steam is probably installed to the default directory C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam, and so is your game. Early in 2017 Steam removed support for handling multiple folders on the same drive. However, it is still possible to force steam to do this by editing a configuration file manually. If you are uncomfortable with this, you should go ahead and do it anyways, because it's good practice, but you could alternatively move all of steam outside of program files.
Create the directory you would like to install Skyrim to. I recommend C:/Games/SteamLibrary2/Steamapps Note that it is necessary for there to be a "steamapps" folder in the directory or steam will not allow you to install a game there.
If you are doing a fresh Skyrim install, run the game once to initialize data before beginning the process and moving forward in this guide! To do this simply launch Skyrim from Steam once, let the Splash menu appear and set your graphics settings and then exit. This allows Skyrim to set up some necessary file paths.
Download the latest version of NMM from here. If you are currently using an older (0.56 or lower) version of NMM for a different game, you may wish to install this as a separate instance. Otherwise, you can update your existing version of the program. Install it to the Skyrim Modding utility folder you created.
Run the installer and point it to your Skyrim game folder.Make sure the boxes for "Install for Skyrim" and "Standalone" are checked.Doing this will create a folder titled "Mopy" in the Skyrim directory.This is the Wrye Bash folder and home to Wrye Bash.exe
Once the merged patch is created you can, if you wish, double click it to drop open its contents. Here you can adjust things by hand.This takes some practice but it's a great way to learn what mods are doing internally and being able to create your own patches to fix conflicts.I will eventually be making a video to accompany this section and go over some simple editing. Note that at this point, with no other mods installed, your merged patch will not contain anything! It resolves conflicts in mods. No mods = no conflicts to resolve
You made it over the first mountain on your journey towards a modded Skyrim! Take a minute to revel in the glory! Drink some mead! Punch Nazeem! Shout a mudcrab off a cliff! Dance a jig in the name of Uncle Sheo! Once you're done celebrating let's go over a few good practices and install a few mods to get you started!
Always ALWAYS read a mods description page. Twice. Then maybe a third time. Make sure you completely understand what the mod does, how to install it, what it's compatibilities are, etc. If you don't take the time to really understand it chances are it will be your fault when it breaks.
Let's grab a few more just so we can deal with some different types of installation and downloading practices.Unlike the Unofficial Patch and SkyUI, these are not essential and you are free to remove them after installing.I just want to go over these so you are comfortable with some different steps you may encounter during installation of a mod. 2ff7e9595c
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