[skyrim] Setting Up This {Insert Words of Choice Here} Game, the basics (A)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

A game so famous that, if you haven't heard about it, you've probably been hiding under a rock.

The eleventh (I believe, but this is counting this portable games no one played, ever, and ignoring expansion packs) game in Bethseda's ridiculously famous flagship franchise, that despite having come out in back in 2011 (which, by video game logic, is clearly ancient), is still ridiculously popular... mostly thanks to it's modding community.

(Of course, so is Morrowind.)

While those on console's are sadly locked out of the modding game unless they wish to violate their warranty and get banned from the Bethseda message boards forevermore, Skyrim modding is probably the reason for the game's popularity.  Lacking in the more indepth storyline one might be used to from Bioware, Obsidian and now CD Projekt, Skyrim instead focuses on an open world- where anything and everything can be changed by anyone with a bit of sense, focus, and ability to read tutorials and use a few utilities.

Despite that, though, modding Skyrim still presents it's difficulties.

Especially to me, due to my tendency of installing FIVE MILLION MODS AT ONCE.  Which, uh, tends to lead to crashes every three minutes.

After really getting to the point where I was getting a crash every ten minutes, I decided to breathe a few times and start all over.  Mostly as a note for myself, I decided to document this process, but I realize it may be of use to others as well.  I'll be going over things like using Wyre Bash, merging mods, adding animations, setting up ENB's...

Though I'll be doing it over the course of quite a few posts.

This guide will probably make more sense if you've done a bit of modding with another Bethseda game before (or Obsidan's Fallout New Vegas), but I am trying to make this as easy to follow without using video for someone who is completely new.  I don't know if I succeed in it, but it's an attempt!

Now, this seems like a good place for a cut...

Okay.  Here is where we start.

Do you have Skyrim installed?  If you have installed any mod ever- I don't care what the hell it is- through any format but Wyre Bash, just uninstall the whole entire game.  Nuke it from orbit.  (Wyre Bash users, uninstall the crap you have installed, la de da, though if you're smart enough to be bashing everything you probably don't need to read me babble!)  Then, reinstall the game.

(Do not install it in your C:/Program Files(/Steam) directory.  That will lead to troubles later on when modding, due to Window's being paranoid and over protective over anything there.  Never install anything in to your Program Files if you can help it!)

Install Hearthfire, Dawnguard, and Dragonborn.

("Wait, Mikka, I don't have those DLC's!"  Well, that's mostly okay, if sad.  I recommend them: Dragonborn and Dawnguard are fun quests with some interesting stuff.  Hearthfire isn't as impressive, but it's cute and it's cheap.  Fair warning that more and more mods require those DLCs, though (and I generally will make the assumption that you have them), so make sure to READ THE DESCRIPTION PAGE OF ANYTHING YOU WANT TO INSTALL TO MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T REQUIRE A DLC YOU DON'T HAVE.   If you try to install a mod that requires a DLC that doesn't work, your game won't load.  At all.  Very sad.)

(LATER UPDATE OF DOOM: Now that the Unofficial Patches require these three mods, it's time to change one's mind about that.  Don't have those DLC's?  Buy them.  Many mods depend on the Unofficial Patch, which in turn requires all three DLC's.  Wait for a Steam sale and you should be able to get the whole pack for 10$'s.)

Install the latest update.  Steam's probably already done this for you, whether you wanted it to or not.  Steam and I are often not on speaking terms when it comes to how it likes to randomly update things (thus, my annoyance with the workshop), but allowing it to patch you to the latest update will not hurt you

Take a look in your data folder (that'll be in your steam folder- mine is D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common, although my regular Steam is still on drive C) .  This is where, you'll notice, mods are installed.  Right now, it's pretty sparse: it has the Dawnguard/Dragonborn/Hearthfire/Update.esm files and bsa files, the Skyrim esm and it's various bsa files and maybe three folders.

(ESM are sort of 'master mod files'; they'll load before 'esp' mod files and can do a few things ESP's can't.  'BSA' is sort of like a super archive that holds all sorts of things: scripts, meshes, textures, sounds... everything!)

And we finally get to what I truly consider step one of this whole guide (ignore that whole update thing).

It's a simple step.

ZIP UP THAT WHOLE DATA FOLDER.  ALL OF IT.  EVERY LAST BIT OF IT.  Then put it somewhere safe (I just set it in the regular Skyrim folder).  This is going to be your backup (naming it SkyrimDataBackup works!), for when you screw up... or, more charitably, finish one character and want to install a completely new set of mods for a new character.

(This is a good time to install 7Zip.  It's an open source zipping program that will unzip and zipup your usually zips and rar, as well as the unique 7zips, which more and more people are using to zip up their cool stuff... like their mods.)

Now that you have your backup and your DLC's and update installed, run the game once.  You don't have to go far: I don't think you even have to make it to character generation, though I usually do.  This will build your Skyrim ini file (it's in your documents/My Games folder over here on Windows, if you want to stare at it for a while).  There can be reasons to edit your INI file (many of them called 'make it so the stupid carriage ride doesn't take five years because of logos'), but we'll get that later

Now that you have installed DLC, updates, and made sure your game is running, we're going to install Five Million Programs.  Some of them can be installed anywhere, some need to be installed in the Skyrim mod directory.

Most of this stuff will be downloaded from Skyrim Nexus.  Download the stuff MANUALLY.  Don't use the green button.  The green button doesn't like you.

1. Nexus Mod Manager.  (Make a Nexus account now if you don't have one: unlike Morrowind, almost all Skyrim mods can be found on Nexus.)  This is the easiest way of installing mods, which has it's good and bad parts: it's very simple to just plug and play, yet more complicated (and big!) mods can lead to failed installations and broken files.  As a bonus, you can also use NMM to install mods for many different games as well: Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas are obvious, but I've installed Dragon Age II mods there, as well.  For that reason, I give NMM it's own folder, separate from Skyrim.
2. Steam Workshop (Technically, you don't exactly install this... but whatever.)  Due to it's stupid system of Updating Mods whether you want them to update or not, I use Steam Workshop as little as possible (plus, going in to the future, I'm still bitter about that random pay for mods thing Valve and Bethseda tried to pull).  Still, some people only upload on Steam Workshop... usually because they've been banned from the Nexus, but, whatever works.
3. Wyre Bash The most complicated method of installing mods, but also the safest.  If you want to install texture mods, this utility is the absolute queen.  The more mods you install, the more you'll need it's 'Bashed Patch' feature (which will make it so that 'I Add Swords Mod' and 'I Add Maces Mod' can both add their weapons to random bandits, for example- basically impossible without).  Yes, hard to use, but you will need it.  (This will be installed in your Skyrim folder, in it's own folder called 'Mopy'.)
4. Tes5Edit Unfortunately for me, you, and the rest of the world, creating Skyrim mods is hard work.  Which means there's often 'oversights' left in them.  This is usually stuff like 'Modder meant to make this container do this, but accidentally edited so all containers like it do that instead'.  Tes5Edit allows you to 'clean' these errors, which is an annoying process, but one that will prevent so much crashing and annoyance.  It also allows a 'Merged Patch': depending on the combination of mods you use, you may need to use it as well as the Bashed Patch, as Skyrim is just that frustrating.  (I could not get this to work until I put it in the generic Skyrim folder.)
5. LOOT Mods are tricky.  Reading advise on how to order your load order is a headache and a half: Mod A must be before mod B, C, and D, but before F, G, and H, but it has to be installed before mod C because who the hell knows why, yadda yadda.  LOOT is the most recent in load order sorters, and seems to have replaced BOSS for Skyrim.  LOOT is also nice enough to tell you which plugins need to be cleaned in Tes5Edit, and should always be run after adding new mods to your game.  (A new version of LOOT came out since I wrote this guide.  LOOT is now much more cooperative in general, and will install wherever.)
6.  BSAOPT Mods often come with their texture, meshes and sounds in BSA's.  This is usually a good thing: BSA's are compressed, which means those textures and meshes will be using less space on your computer.  However, sometimes you don't want that.  Maybe there's a texture in a BSA you really like, and you want no chance of it getting overwritten.  Maybe it's a mod made early in Skyrim's modding history, and there's a ton of empty voice files taking up room in the BSA when a simple plugin would cover for them.  Or maybe you want to merge mods- merging mods that have BSA's isn't recommended, and you'll want to extract from BSA's before merging.  Or, finally, maybe you're near the limit for mod space (Skyrim can only handle so many mods AND bsa's in the data folder, as well as the generic mod limit) and just need unzip whatever fucker you come across.  As an added bonus, BSAOPT can generally compress files (particularly wav files) better then the Creation Kit can, so if you're short on computer space, you may want to re-compress every BSA that crosses your path.  (This can be extracted anywhere.)

Think that's complicated?  I won't deny that it is.  But, trust me: to get a fully modded and totally awesome Skyrim game working, you will use all of them.  Unless you are Steam-paranoid like me, in which you will never use the Steam Workship, just make growling noises at it and pretend it doesn't exist.  But you hopefully aren't me.

So, that was a pretty good selection of utilities to install.  Well done!  Yet there is one more utility you need.

SKSE, or the Skyrim Script Extender.

Now, my ex-boyfriend (who, despite his horrible taste in food, was quite an intelligent guy- hi Alex, wherever you are), claimed to me he took three hours to try and figure out how to install this program.  I think he was exaggerating out the wahzoo, or else had dropped in to insanity, but just in case, I will make this very simple.

Take the current's build's 7zip archive.  Open it.  Click through the top layer.  Put it in your general Skyrim directory, with the src folder ending up there, as well as the ever important skse_loader.exe.  In the Data folder, a 'Scripts' folder will be put.

Yeah, it's that easy.  Even easier if you use the exe file.

Now, right now, you don't have any mods that use SKSE.  But you will.  Perhaps the most famous mod of Skyrim, SkyUI, calls on it, and so many mods tie back to SkyUI that it isn't funny.

What is worth noting, however (I'll put it all caps): ONCE YOU HAVE SKSE MODS, YOU WILL HAVE TO START THE GAME USING THAT SKSE_LOADER.EXE FILE.  (Wyre Bash has a button that allows you to do so straight from there.)  You will not be able to launch directly through Steam anymore.  Skse_loader.exe *should* open Steam in the background, but if it's having trouble doing so, you may want to open Steam first (but not Skyrim!).  Then click SKSE_loader.exe.  Skyrim will launch through SKSE_loader from now on.  This manages to confuse so many people, so honestly, I suggest right now just making a shortcut of the SKSE_loader and throwing it on your desktop.

Compared to the sort of stuff I usually write, this actually isn't that long, but I am going to break off here before I go in to the installing mods bit.

"But, Mikka," you say.  "Your taste in mods is dumb.  I know you romanced Anomen once back in BG2, and you are hereby disqualified from ever recommending any mods ever."

(MY LADY HEY DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE TIME I KILLED FIVE HUNDRED GIANTS WITH MY SPEAR HAI MY LADY DUDE I RULE SPEARRR)

That's okay too.  Here are some other places you can go for recommended mods.

• Arwen's Skyrim Journal  Focusing on that confusing concept of IMMERSION, Arwen generally focuses on mods that will make for a, er, immersive gameplay?  Generally a good collection, though some links may be broken.
• The Step Project The Step project combines basic graphic mods with basic gameplay mods, and tries it's best to keep things lore friendly.  Too much graphic stuff for me, but recommendations are good.
• Skyrim Gems One of my personal favorites, Gems combines gameplay with immersion with graphics with roleplaying with whatever comes to mind.  The bad part?  Not all the mods work all that well together, and some are basically 'first tries' at mods that were eventually given a new form much better scripted and worked generally better that sadly aren't linked.
• Elder Scrolls General I start you on their utilities page rather then the ENB page, as ENB's are scary.  A site that shares my Steam-phobia (although likely because they're pirates) and generally recommends high quality good stuff.  On the other hand, their MAKE YOUR IDEAL WAIFU page is seven different kinds of creepy, and they don't think Vilja is a goddess, so.  You know.  Disagreements, yo.
• Skyrim Beautification Project Focused almost solely on making your Skyrim pretty as hell, they're quite good at what they do.  Of course, most of the stuff they recommend would kill my computer, but, hey, PRETTY.  LOOK AT THE PRETTY.
• /vg/'s Recs The recommendation of some asshole on 4/c/han.  Complete with the charming title of 'No faggots edition' which makes me want to suffocate them in their sleep.  Ignoring that, they recommend a pretty good list of mods, though it's with the added bonus of some whiny twelve year old 'NAKED GIRLS ARE PRETTY BUT NAKED GUYS ARE GROSS'.  Then again, they want to add dicks on their female characters, so what the hell.  (This perhaps is the first example of, yes, THERE ARE ADULT MODS FOR SKYRIM VERY ADULT MODS.  Like said woman with, ahem, cocks.  I don't really recommend that one, but whatever floats your boat.)

Okay, post about the mods I recommend you install (which is obviously better then the mods everyone else recommends you install because I'm a princess (in my own mind)) coming later.  Like tomorrow.

For now, breathe.  Woo, breathing!