Questions for experienced modders

[Gator]

I am looking for a minimalist overhaul for Skyrim. I have a lot of experience with mods and are using as little as possible to achieve the maximum affect. What I don't know are the current best mods that cause little to no bugs or problems. My problem is as many others, installing too many mods, so I am looking to pick y'alls brains about which mods are the best and most necessary while achieving the maximum affect.

To start with my mod list is Open Cities, JK overhauls, Bjinn's NPC overhauls, Skyrim floral overhaul, Vivid Weather, enhanced lights and fx, Serenaholic, Apocalypse magic, Neisa(Tanking companion), Realistic Water Two Immersive Armors, weapons, patrols, and wenches.

I would also like to know if using an ENB is worth it or if I aught to just stick with the current graphical overhauls in special edition? I'm running a GTX 970 MSI 4g with 16 gigs of ram and an i5-6600k processor. If ENB is worth it with this machine set up, are there any that y'all would recommend?

Beyond that what mods are must-haves for you, that don't cause CTDs or problems? What mods would you recommend? Also followers mod recommendations are appreciated, always a fan of skyrim babes.

[Vlad 254]

Simple, basic, yet very effective.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1986067552

[every1hasnames]

book of unp mod I feel is a necessity. It compliments immersive armor mod. What I mean by this is while immersive armors adds new immersive armors to the game. Book of Unp adds immersive armors that are based on the vanilla armor and equipment. Literally adding a variant of each. That looks alot better then the vanilla armor and equipment. Its a must have for me. Never play without it. NOr do I play without immersive armors either.


Darker nights and darker interiors. Also a must have for me. spells and abilities like night eye and magelight are useless in the vanilla game. Its always to bright in order for them to be actually 100 percent needed in the vanilla game. So darker nights and darker interiors are a must have for me to make those spells and abilites actually needed.


Backpack mod never play without one just helps with immersiveness. Pick up any loot and no real explanation on how your carrying it. With a backpack mod theres is an explanation now.


you have already mentioned some of the other must haves for me. immersive weapons,armor apocalypse spell .


Ordinator is also a must have for me.


Alternate start. If you play multiple playthroughs even on a semi regular basis. This is a must have.


keeping warm mod ad scarves to the game and winter is coming cloaks of skyrim.

a campfire mod.


And finally must have helgan reborn, falskaar, moonpath to elswhere , the forgotton city and Mrissi tales of trouble and the grey cowl of nocturnal mods.



there are other must haves for me but they depend on the character I want to play. All the mods i mentioned are must haves regardless of the character I want to play.

[Southpawe]

You are good to use an ENB with your setup and they are totally worth it. You may have to make sacrifices though to keep your build stable and you probably aren't going to get a solid 60 FPS.

I have a lot of recommendations based on my build for maximum effect mods, as I've been trying to downsize my own mod list recently.

Are you interested in more hardcore gameplay mods or just graphics mods?

I can give you a list with links when I get back to my desktop.

[Havok]

I personally dont find ENBs worth it. Now a lot of people argue FPS isnt overly important in a game like SSE, however, the performace hit you take while using medium-heavy duty ENBs is fairly drastic

[Southpawe]

Originally posted by Samurai:

I personally dont find ENBs worth it. Now a lot of people argue FPS isnt overly important in a game like SSE, however, the performace hit you take while using medium-heavy duty ENBs is fairly drastic

Well the visuals are drastically different so it really depends on whether or not you like performance or graphics better.


Using a Reshade preset is also an option as it can achieve a middle-ground between the two and maintain near vanilla performance.