pack VEGA Core: Vanilla Enhanced Gameplay Alternative (by Nearox)

[EssArrBee]

Those type of questions require testing, and that takes time. This pack was done with only CORE as a requirement because it added so many crazy mods to leveled lists and spawns. To give it a stamp of approval for compatibility for other packs would need playthroughs with both packs installed. You can do it yourself and report your findings, just list what packs, how long you played, how far into the game you got, any bugs, crashes, or freezes. All those things will give Nearox a much better idea of what will work for people that want to use more packs or mods.

[Smile44]

Of course just wondered if there had been specific reasons or whether as you have stated it was just due to testing. I have been playing with this to level 10 without a hint of a ctd or similar also I am using the lighting section of my Weather pack and my survival pack and a number of other mods to improve elements of gameplay such as moonlight tales and vampiric thirst. All good so far. The full weather pack will work fine with this without significant patching as will the survival pack.

 

This is still a lot easier than Requiem to play but it is still fun.

 

:)

[EssArrBee]

If you have a solid playthrough going that is great. But for the purpose of packs specifically there needs to testing done without anything but the packs, no extra mods, no ENB or injectors.

 

Then what I would propose is to test a pack with one mod or two mods extra at a time. Then you can add those mods to a list of compatible mods. Test separately with ENB, ENBoost, SweetFX, and SMAA injectors just to see if anything pops up. For the sake of consistency we have to stick to those type of conditions without throwing a bunch of stuff in to a setup and saying it is okay.

[Smile44]

Of course you are right, feel free sounds like lots of fun. In fact it is what I did more or less. As I understand it this pack was fully tested as is and I am happy to corroborate that it works like a charm but on its own it needs more for my tastes and so I installed it exactly as detailed then played it and started to add mods from packs to it - and so far so good.

 

Anyway the point of my posts was to a) find out any more info with respect to decisions made and b) to confirm that it works well both standalone and with other packs. You may do with that, what you will.

 

:)

[Nearox]

Just started using this to test it out for myself. All works flawlessly even with an ENB. Combat was easy in Helgen but definitely harder outside' date=' that said I did have Hadvar with me.

 

Anyway as fas as this pack goes you have clearly done a good job but I would like to know about mods like iHud or Frostfall etc.. is there a reason you have not included those other than it is in other packs adding that would require the survival plugin from skyRe.

 

In other words in your opinion would this pack be compatible with the Weather and lighting pack for example? 

:)[/quote']

I must admit I'm honored you are playing with VEGA :)

 

The reason I didn't include Frostfall is twofold. I'm personally not a big fan of survival mods - though I used quite a few in the past by the time I reached level 20 on a playthrough I felt Frostfall got tedious even with all its awesome functionality. Second, I deliberately avoided using scripting mods that run continously in the background and which run checks on the player/npcs/weather/environment with high frequency. Mods like Frostfall, Wet&Cold etc. SkyRe by itself is really heavy and in my experience those mods can work with SkyRe but they also tend to increase CTD's and can often be the leading cause of going from 100% stability to instability. Moreover, SkyRe script load increases when you get higher level and more perks.

 

I'd however of course be more than happen to hear your experiences with Frostfall and this pack if you decide to play with it, and to assist you with it along the way. But if you're enjoying your current playthrough, I'd advice you to not save your game for an hour or two while playing in exteriors with Frostfall on and to see how it works out (disable  autosave manager temporarily, or manually save to a new file).

 

With regards to iHud, I didn't include it because I hadn't really considered it a gameplay-mod, more like an interface type of thing. Should be 100% safe to use (even though it uses a few scritps they are surely harmless to almost any game, I think they only check for combat status). 

 

 

Those type of questions require testing' date=' and that takes time. This pack was done with only CORE as a requirement because it added so many crazy mods to leveled lists and spawns. To give it a stamp of approval for compatibility for other packs would need playthroughs with both packs installed. You can do it yourself and report your findings, just list what packs, how long you played, how far into the game you got, any bugs, crashes, or freezes. All those things will give Nearox a much better idea of what will work for people that want to use more packs or mods.[/quote']

Very much indeed. Feedback will help tremendously. I'm currently at level 40 and haven't experience any issues - That said, I didn't experience any either with this pack when I was using a much heavier modded game so I'm quit confident that no gamebreaking issues will arise. I just want to polish it further. 

 

Of course just wondered if there had been specific reasons or whether as you have stated it was just due to testing. I have been playing with this to level 10 without a hint of a ctd or similar also I am using the lighting section of my Weather pack and my survival pack and a number of other mods to improve elements of gameplay such as moonlight tales and vampiric thirst. All good so far. The full weather pack will work fine with this without significant patching as will the survival pack.

 

This is still a lot easier than Requiem to play but it is still fun.

 

:)

 

Haha! In fact when I was writing the first draft of the guide, I had your pack listed as a compatible pack. It was removed because it hadn't been tested; I didn't want to proclaim anything. However I'm 100% sure our packs are compatible. My first thought is that there might be some conflicts with regards to region records as weather mods tend to modify them a lot, but they should be easy to resolve in TES5Edit. Unfortunately, while I've been wanting to try your pack and see if it is compatible, I just haven't had much time last week to do anthing with regards to modding. Will try to get to it during the next. I hope we can both look at tes5edit conflicts between our packs and make a compatiblity patch or something.

 

With regards to game difficulty, this pack was designed with slightly-above-average gamer skills and needs in mind. SkyRe does the general enemy scaling (must use Adept difficulty for this, or higher) while HLE unscaled version adds more difficult enemies every 10 levels. So you'll still encounter regular SkyRe-scaled mobs but also there's a chance for higher-leveled HLE mobs.

 

If you wish to crank up the difficulty, you could either set the game difficulty to higher than adept but that'll make some things unbalanced. Your best bet is to do the following:

 

1. Install the HLE scaled versino instead of the unscaled. They sue different approaches to scaling and enemy spells so try it out.

2. Install the HLE optional Hardcore version pack (it really isn't THAT hardcore as requiem is)

3. Disable SkyRe_EnemyAI.esp (otherwise it'll conflict with HLE scaled)

4. In SIC MCM, go back to default settings. This will enable more enemies to spawn: e.g. where it was in vanilla 2 wolves, it may now be between 3 and 5 wolves. This probably won't cause CTDs. If it does, you can safely turn it back again to the MCM settings described in the pack. It won't ruin your savegame (I actually play with these settings)

5. In SIC MCM, put the difficutly to something higher than adept. At adept they are still a bit easy. 

6. Re-create the bashed patch and re-run SUM as per the instructions

 

I take you already have, but just in case you didn't, do read the HLE description page. It is highly informative, also at the bottom with regards to how it plays with other mods like SyRE and SIC!

 

EDIT: Added step 4,5 and 6.

 

EDIT2: I haven't tested this with USKP 2.0 yet. My patch forwards some 1.3.3c changes to SkyRe and other mods, but you should be able to safely continue to use the patch and this pack.

[Moragg]

Wow, this looks absolutely amazing. I've been planning on making combat more interesting in my next playthrough, this will almost definitely be in my next mod setup. I also expect to by dying a lot more with this + legendary, should be great fun.

 

Thanks for all the hard work!

[Smile44]

I am using this with UP 2 across the board. Have also added SoT to the game which sometimes gets my character in trouble, thankfully Lydia and Janessa keep me alive as long as I remember not to go charging in. I have had one ctd since stating my play though with this and it was after installing SoT. This was on horseback attempting to fight a large spider. It dawned on me I had not included the patch for Convenient Horses and SoT so installed that and once again not a hint of a crash in several hours play.

 

Gameplay has become harder since reaching level 10. HLE coming to the rescue I suspect. I am not using any weather mods or non core sound mods but do have weather and rain enabled in the ENB and it seems fine though not as immersive or potentially challenging as the weather in my pack but that is as expected.

 

I am using a skin texture for women which is good, not sure if there is the same thing for men but not overly bothered about body mods myself as its gameplay that most interests me but definitely worth testing as far as compatibility goes and since these are mainly texture and mesh only there should not be a problem. I also plan to start adding in select mods from Extended trying to find the sweet spot.

 

I will let you know how it's going.

 

:)

[Nearox]

From hearsay it is my understanding that SoT is pretty script-intensive, so I don't really know how it'll work out with SkyRe but I hope it does well for you smile44.

 

That said, as I'm sure you know, even vanilla Skyrim is not 100% crash and issue-free. Currently I am at level 42 with this setup and have experienced 1 freeze in exteriors. Fortunately, Autosave Manager saves every 5 minutes so it's not a big deal if it happens once in a while. Some time ago I played untill level 87 with a very similar but much heavier modded setup, experienceing about 5 crashes along the way I think. 

 

I'm also really interested how your weather pack would work with VEGA. Do keep me posted about your gameplay experiences. The patch for Revenge of the Enemies is not 100% complete, so if you run into mobs which are strangely overpowered, underpowered or use weird spells - please let me know.

 

Also keep in mind that as far as difficulty goes, we are using SkyRe scaling which has the following formula:

 

Enemy leveling

• Enemies of vanilla level x now vary between 2/3x and 4/3x, for example: Level 10 (vanilla) --> Level 5 - Level 15 (SkyRe)
• High level enemies and boss level enemies scale up to level 100
• Enemies at vanilla level 1 scale between 1 and 3.
• Thieves and random assassins have a new max level of 100, and level at the same speed as
• the player.

So, with SkyRe there is a higher diversity in level ranges that you will encounter. Mobs can be quite a few levels below you, or above. Luck of the draw might explain the easier experience you had up to level 10. Indeed as you said, HLE starts adding enemies to the leveled lists from level 10 onwards so the chance that you encounter a relatively lower level enemy decreases as you progress.

[Nearox]

VEGA Pack news

 

Quote from  author of Apocalypse Spell Package:

I'm digging Apocalypse back up. The end result may be a mod with fewer spells but more micromanaged effects

AND SKYRE/REQUIEM COMPATIBILITY

EnaiSaion posted this today. It is the only spell package that I have considered for inclusion in this pack. But I hadn't so far because it didn't always work smooth with SkyRe (due to huge inbalances created by some spells). Once he is done with it, there's a 100% chance it'll be added to VEGA Core. 

 

You should be able to safely add this to your current save game, when the time comes.

[deathneko11]

nice, just bumped into this mod today and it is being given a spruce up for Requiem. that's a plus 2 in my book any day ^.^

[Moragg]

Something that I just saw: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/23353/?

 

I haven't tested it, but since it fixes sneak (which is pretty broken in vanilla imo) it should fit in well with the combat-related mods in this pack.

[Nearox]

Something that I just saw: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/23353/?

 

I haven't tested it, but since it fixes sneak (which is pretty broken in vanilla imo) it should fit in well with the combat-related mods in this pack.

Sneak mods based on lighting are nice, but they would likely make this pack incompatible with other weather and lighting mods. When combined with CoT, RLO, ELFX etc., lighting-baed sneak mods tend to react differently or incorrectly. At least that's my experience. SKyRe already modifes sneaking mechanis a lot as well. I am adding sneak enhancements to my more advanced mod pack VEGA Extended though.

 

I would like to make this pack compatible with smile44's weather and lighting pack, so I'm holding off any mods that may interfere. 

 

That said, the only mod that I plan to add in the near future is Apocalypse Spell Package, as mentioned 2 posts earlier. I'll also be making a new compatibility patch for USKP 2.0, though there aren't really any major changes that affect this pack in the first place. Other than that, I'm leaving this pack as it is for a month or so to allow time for feedback and for people to do a full stable playthrough. 

[deathneko11]

Regardless of whether you are using a mod that modifies sneak or are just using vanilla sneak, lighting still plays a role in how sneak works. unfortunately sneak can be broken in a vanilla skyrim because not all light is "real light", but "fake light" at times. point in case being in dungeons and several interiors where you get a light effect but it's actually a glow from a glow mesh such as certain types of fog. While it looks cool, it has no effect on sneak. Another issue with sneak and lighting, in particular vanilla lighting, is the imagespace templates used in certain areas. The templates can brighten or darken an area but it has no affect on sneak whatsoever. This is why certain lighting mods such as Realistic Lighting Overhaul can actually make sneaking more realistic. When proper lighting and imagespace templates are used, your sneak rate increases wherever it may be dark and decreases wherever it may be light.

 

(for the record, don't expect this to be applied to RLO dungeons because dungeons have not been fixed in this fashion yet, but the majority if not all of exterior lighting and city/town lighting will follow these mechanics for this particular mod)

[Moragg]

I'm running Skyrim Revisited (1st Skyrim playthrough) so the too-easy sneak was very noticable. If the mods in VEGA Extended fix that mostly that 'd be great - it actually contains most of the mods I want to try on my next run, especially CWO, so I'm hoping it'll be stableish when I get round to redoing my Skyrim mods. Thanks again for all the hard work, I'll definitely be using it and giving feedback in the future.

[hellanios]

1.I would also like to see Improved sneak detection in the list. It seems pretty interesting and Gopher uses it without problems so far.

2.Another mod that I suggest is Obis.

3.Can we use the other two versions of Enemy AI OverHaul---Revenge Of the Enemies---No Scripts Version or will there be any incompatibilities?