[Guide] Converting Mods from Original to Special Edition

Learn how to convert an Old Skyrim mod into the proper format for porting to Skyrim Special Edition. Extremely detailed for beginners.

Thank you to JedY BoY for the wonderful branding image and suggestions for the title.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. TABLE OF CONTENTS
2. INTRODUCTION
3. NOTE
4. DISCLAIMER
5. WARNINGS AND MINUTIA
6. TOOLS
7. HOW TO, PART ONE: CONVERTING A NEXUS MOD
8. HOW TO, PART TWO: INTRODUCTION
9. HOW TO, PART TWO: CONVERTING A STEAM WORKSHOP MOD OR A MOD YOU HAVE ONLY IN YOUR ORIGINAL SKYRIM DATA FILE
10. CLOSING STATEMENT

INTRODUCTION

Those of us who have been playing the long anticipated Skyrim Special Edition have had a chance to form our opinions now. Some of us like it—some don’t. I’m sort of in between. I had my old Skyrim modded rather heavily and it was very realistic and lots of fun, but very temperamental. Constant maintenance was required for smooth gameplay.

The casual player doesn’t want to go to that much trouble, so the new Skyrim is a boon to them, for even if it is rather underwhelming as far as graphics, the speed of the game with its new engine and the ease with which one can add mods and run it without much upkeep make it a great choice over the Old Skyrim.

Unfortunately, the modding community has not quite caught up yet. Mods are being added at a tremendous rate, but what is available for SSE is just a drop in the bucket compared to what is available for the original game. Worse, our old favorites will probably never be ported over. Many modders have moved on with their lives and retired from modding. A few have died. Some have simply disappeared and taken their mods with them.

In addition, without the permission of the mod author, no mod may be ported over to SSE. If the mod author cannot be reached, what can be done?

In time we will see many mods return or substitutes created. Until then, we must manage as best we can. This guide will help you do that by teaching you how to use the Bethesda Archive Extractor.

THIS GUIDE IS EXTREMELY DETAILED TO AID BEGINNERS. Much of the information I read on the subject was exceedingly brief. I had to learn by trial and error. Thus I hope the detailed information below will prevent any nervous breakdowns.

NOTE

In the context of this guide, modding refers to installing and running mods in the game—not creating a mod.

DISCLAIMER

I do not proclaim to be an expert at modding. If you need help with your mods, contact the mod author or seek help on the discussion threads. What I am about to show you is available on the Nexus. I do not own the program. I’ve only figured out how to use it.

WARNINGS & MINUTIA

WARNING: I do not recommend using this method for texture mods (including mods which introduce non-vanilla items), large, complicated mods or any mod dependent upon SkyUI or SKSE. Most likely they won’t work. Textures are different in SSE. Mod authors must re-do some or all of their work so that it will be compatible with SSE. Just try porting over a texture mod and you’ll see what I mean. Any SkyUI/SKSE mod will also not work. The mod author must create a new way to allow in-game configuration—or wait for the new SKSE to come out. SkyUI will not be re-done for SSE unless someone decides to take it on, for the SkyUI team has moved on.

WARNING: Before trying to convert a mod, MAKE SURE IT’S NOT AVAILABLE ON THE SSE NEXUS OR IN BETHESDA’S LIBRARY. THIS METHOD IS A LAST RESORT, ALWAYS.

WARNING: If something does not work or crashes your game, then either the mod you chose will need special attention from the mod author, you have a load order problem or a mod conflict. Remember that there are MANY factors to consider when troubleshooting mods. MOD AT YOUR OWN RISK.

WARNING: BACK UP YOUR GAME SAVES!

DEAR TROLLS: Move on, please. I will delete your vitriol. I don’t care what you think.

HAVE I GOT IT WRONG? Constructive criticism and tips are welcome. That’s what this community is for. Gamers help Gamers.

TOOLS

1. Bethesda Archive Extractor

2. Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) or MO2. (NMM is a dead program. If you're still using it, though, I'm leaving the instructions for it in this guide.

3. Win-RAR www.everyexe.com/WinRAR

HOW TO, PART I, CONVERTING A NEXUS MOD

HOW TO:

PART I

STEP ONE:

Download the Bethesda Archive Extractor: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/974/?

Follow the installation instructions and put a shortcut on your desktop. (Don’t worry, it’s a simple process.)

If you don’t already have a copy of Win-RAR, get that too, from the link above. You can get the free trial or buy a license. I use it constantly so I bought a license.

STEP TWO:

Choose your mod. MANUALLY download it. If you use NMM to download an old Skyrim mod—it will go the original Skyrim game—NOT SSE. There is a way to convert such a mod, but we’ll cover that in PART II.

STEP THREE:

Create a temporary folder to hold the downloaded mod so it doesn’t get mixed up with your 9 million other downloads. (I create a permanent folder to keep as a back-up on a flash drive.) Move the downloaded file into this folder.

Right click on the downloaded file and choose “extract here”. You should now have an ESP file and a BSA file.

NOTE: Some simple mods do not have BSA’s. These usually will port over easily, but may require re-saving inside the SSE Creation Kit. Simple Follower mods fall into this category (NOT SCRIPTED FOLLOWERS LIKE VILJA OR INIGO!)

STEP FOUR:

Keep your folder with the BSA & ESP files open—just make the window smaller. Open up the BAE Program. The idea is to have both windows open at the same time.

In the BAE Window, you will see a place where it says "Drag Archives Here" with a giant arrow. You can't miss it. Drag the BSA file into that window.

A new window will open and you will see the BSA file at the top and a button at the bottom that reads "Extract Files". Click that.

Yet another window will open, showing your file structure on the left and a "Select Folder” button on the bottom right. In your files, navigate to the folder you created to put the files in, where your downloaded file and the ESP and BSA file are still waiting. Once you are inside that folder, click on the "Select Folder" button on the bottom right of the BAE window.

The BAE program will now extract the files into your folder. Give it a couple of minutes or more. Use the time to do that chore your mother wants you to do, or go to the bathroom and have another slice of pizza.

STEP FIVE:

Close the BAE program and navigate back to the temporary file folder. You should now see the ESP file and a group of loose files. [Some mods only have one loose file folder.]

The old BSA file will be there too. Delete it. It's for the Old Skyrim and you don't need it any more.

Select/highlight the ESP and the loose files and then right click. Choose "Add to (whatever the name of your file folder is).rar". The files will then be compressed into a new rar file.

STEP SIX:

NMM
Open the SSE section of NMM.

Click on the large “plus sign” located at the top left-hand side of your NMM program window. Navigate to the new rar file in your temporary folder and double click it.

The mod will now be added to NMM. Activate as usual and boot up your game to test it. You may need to adjust the load order.

MO2
Click on the "add from archive" button up in the top left-hand corner of the window. Navigate to where your new archive is stored. Highlight the archive and double click it or click on "open" in the bottom right hand corner of the window. The mod will be added to MO2 and you can activate it as you would any mod.

HOW TO, PART II, INTRODUCTION

CONVERTING A WORKSHOP MOD OR A MOD YOU HAVE IN THE OLD SKYRIM FOR WHICH THERE IS NO OTHER COPY

If you’ve been playing Skyrim for a long time, like me, you have some mods in your Old Skyrim Data Folder that have been taken down or are otherwise no longer available. You may also have mods only available in the Old Skyrim Workshop. These are mods that are already un-packed from the BSA file. However, you can’t just copy them and move them over, because a BSA for Skyrim won’t work as a BSA for SSE. SSE changes the way data is packed and stored. You also can’t just take all the loose files and move them over, because this gives both games indigestion. They won’t run right or the load order will be out of whack. So this method will allow you to re-pack the mods in the new format and move them over.

HOW TO, PART TWO: CONVERTING A STEAM WORKSHOP MOD OR A MOD YOU HAVE ONLY IN YOUR ORIGINAL SKYRIM DATA FILE

STEP ONE:

Find the mod you want, either in your Old Skyrim data folder or on the Steam Workshop. If it’s on the Workshop, subscribe to it and wait for it to load into your old Skyrim data folder. Copy both the BSA and the ESP and move them to a temporary file folder as you did in Part I, STEP III.

STEP TWO:

Highlight BOTH the BSA File and the ESP file and right click. Choose “Add to (whatever the name of your file folder is).rar.” This will create a new “packed” rar file. You should now see the old BSA and old ESP, plus your new rar file. Delete the old BSA and the old ESP.

MAKE SURE THOSE COPIES REMAIN IN YOUR OLD SKYRIM DATA FOLDER OR THAT YOU HAVE BACK UPS!!! YOU MIGHT HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN IF YOU GET IT WRONG.

STEP THREE:

Now, re-extract the files from the new rar file. Right click on the rar file and choose “Extract Here”. You should now have a new ESP file, a new BSA file and the rar file you just created.

STEP FOUR:

Open the BAE program window. Drag the new BSA file into the “Drag Archives Here” window. Click on the “Extract” button. Navigate to your temporary file folder as you did in Part I, STEP FOUR and click on “Select Folder”. Wait for it to re-extract the files. Go let the dog out.

STEP FIVE:

In your temporary file folder you should now see the new rar file you made, the new ESP file, the new BSA file and some loose file folders. [Some mods only have one loose file folder.]

Delete the rar and the BSA so they don’t get in your way. (Remember to close the BAE window, because the BSA will be open in that program, preventing you from deleting it.)

Highlight the new ESP and the loose files and right click. Choose “Add to (whatever the name of your file folder is).rar.” The files will be re-compressed into a new rar file.

NMM
Open the SSE section of NMM.

Click on the large “plus sign” located at the top left-hand side of your NMM program window. Navigate to the new rar file in your temporary folder and double click it.

The mod will now be added to NMM. Activate as usual and boot up your game to test it. You may need to adjust the load order.

MO2
Click on the "add from archive" button up in the top left-hand corner of the window. Navigate to where your new archive is stored. Highlight the archive and double click it or click on "open" in the bottom right hand corner of the window. The mod will be added to MO2 and you can activate it as you would any mod.

CLOSING STATEMENT

I hope you will find this guide helpful in converting your old favorite mods for which you have no other replacement. Remember to rate up, if you like it.

[Rider]

Sorry for the late response. Thank you very much.

I think you can just open it up in the SSE Creation Kit and re-save it. That will change it to a form 44. Try that and if it does not work, let me know and I'll investigate it.

[illiciTWraith]

First of all, this guide is amazing, I wanted to do this for the Temptress race but I dont see any bsa file for the mod, is there any other way to port it over?

[Rider]

Anytime, Gamer!

[RPG Gamer Man]

thanks you for the response.

[Rider]

Sorry for the late response.

Once you've converted your mod, then adding it to your game would just be a matter of following your mod manager's process. I used NMM at the time I wrote this guide--now I use MO2. I know nothing about Vortex.

So however you add a mod to your game with Vortex is what you would do. There's no special way to convert the mod for any mod manager.

[RPG Gamer Man]

Question: If i do the above steps, do i need to do anything special for Vortex?

[Rider]

What type of mod are you converting? If it is a texture mod, it won't have an esp. It will only have loose files. What is the name of the mod?

[SilkySmooth]

fak

[Rider]

Yes, you do. Every single time.

[SilkySmooth]

Once I sign in to the launcher I don't have to log in every signle time?