First ever playthrough of Skyrim....any modding tips?

[StevieP]

I've only just realised that I have access to Skyrim through my son's Gamepass subscription and thought I'd give it a go!

Before I do, I know there are more than a couple of mods for the game so I was wondering if there were any "must have's" before I start??

 

[BubbySoup]

This is a massively loaded question!

First up, there is a thread on here which you should look through detailing Skyrim's mods. Be warned, you can spend way more time actually modding the game over playing it. It wouldn't surprise me if there are players who have never actually finished the game, yet they have hundreds of hours racked up modding it.

If you just want to play the game but with an enhanced experience and minimum fuss (you can get lost for days/weeks on end if you start looking through Nexus Mods) I would suggest something like Wabbajack which is an automated installer for Skyrim mods. It will save you a massive amount of time and actually let you play the game before 2026.

I would also recommend subscribing to Nexus for a month unless you want to leave your PC on for days on end whilst it downloads at a crippled speed.

 

[ne0]

Google Skyrim modding and follow a guide to get properly set up with the right tools and learn about load order.

Know that anything related to graphics such as texture packs are basically safe and unlikely to be problematic.

Be more cautious with mods that include scripts as these are much more likely to break something.

Read mod descriptions thoroughly.

Read comments and avoid where many users report crashes.

If you see a mod you like check when it was made - if it's old it's likely it's been superseded by something better, but not always.

 

[Octoplex7]

How much VRAM do you have at your disposal

 

[Rroff]

Honestly I wouldn't go too mad on your first play through with mods - it is awhile since I played it and some stuff has changed since depending on version of the game but personally wouldn't go beyond:

-Some kind of high-res texture pack.
-SkyUI w/ SKSE (or whatever the latest incarnation of that is) to improve the UI and mechanics for weapons and powers, etc. just to make things more streamlined rather than changing how the game works.
-Cartographers map markers and map updates or similar map improvement.

I'd also lean towards a sky replacement - something like "Milky Way Galaxy Texture" makes the night sky 10x better than the original game.

A lot of mods significantly alter the game which can be great for subsequent play throughs but personally think it better to play the first time around without going too crazy.

 

[meths]

Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd just revive this one.

I've never played Skyrim past the intro and thought why not give it a go but in VR. I bought Skyrim VR yesterday and looked into modding it because by all accounts it seems essential for this game just to make it playable.

Reading online it seems that the Mad God Overhaul is the one to go for, so I downloaded Wabbajack and had a look to see if it was on there.

It wasn't, so I stuck in my Nexus login details expecting it to appear but the list in Wabbajack didn't update.

Am I doing something wrong or expecting Wabbajack do do something that it doesn't do?

Do I need to just download the mod file from Nexus and install the thing manually?

I'd appreciate some input from anyone who been through this before.

 

[melmac]

Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd just revive this one.

I've never played Skyrim past the intro and thought why not give it a go but in VR. I bought Skyrim VR yesterday and looked into modding it because by all accounts it seems essential for this game just to make it playable.

Reading online it seems that the Mad God Overhaul is the one to go for, so I downloaded Wabbajack and had a look to see if it was on there.

It wasn't, so I stuck in my Nexus login details expecting it to appear but the list in Wabbajack didn't update.

Am I doing something wrong or expecting Wabbajack do do something that it doesn't do?

Do I need to just download the mod file from Nexus and install the thing manually?

I'd appreciate some input from anyone who been through this before.

How good is your PC? Mad Dog Over Haul is very hard to run, even on minimum settings.

To install it, you need to have run the base game at least once.

Here is a good guide. Would highly recommend getting a Premium account in Nexus Mods.

 

[meths]

How good is your PC? Mad Dog Over Haul is very hard to run, even on minimum settings.

To install it, you need to have run the base game at least once.

Here is a good guide. Would highly recommend getting a Premium account in Nexus Mods.

Thanks for the link. I'll take a look later tonight.

The PC has a RTX 5090 in it so hopefully it'll be okay. If I can't run it on that then I'll be wanting my money back.