beginner questions about STEP setup

[rothbardian]

First off, thanks so much for creating STEP!  What an amazing resource.

 

I'm about to embark on my first install of Skyrim and STEP, and I have a few questions that cropped up from the setup reading I've done here:

 

1) The Core and Legendary Edition guides seem geared around using BOSS/BUM, but I'm reading elsewhere here that BOSS is outdated and we should be using LOOT.  Is it OK to use LOOT instead?  Any gotchas?

 

2) The guides also say to use DDSopt.  Is using DDSopt a suggestion or a requirement?  For reference my machine has SLI GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5.

 

3) I read in the Core guide that Wrye Bash has been largely superseded by Mod Organizer...  But that Wrye Bash is still used to make "bashed patches".  I tried wading through the Wrye Bash guide, but I still don't have a good understanding of what a bashed patch is and why we need to make them. 

 

4) When I spend the 10-15(?)+ hours to download and install Skyrim and all these STEP mods and the related utilities for managing them, is there a way to back up all this work so that I can transfer the freshly completed STEP install package to a new machine?  I might trade in my laptop for a desktop in a couple months, and the idea of starting all this from scratch is kind of horrific.  I understand the concept of making a backup of the vanilla Skyrim Directory per the Skyrim Installation Guide.  But what about after I install MO, BOSS/BUM (or LOOT?), Wrye Bash, SKSE, TES5Edit, ENB, and a huge pile of mods?  Is there a way to snapshot all this stuff to an external drive so it can be transferred to a new machine easily?  (I have the wonderful program Beyond Compare if that helps.)

 

5) I find the 'cleaning ESMs' sections in the Legendary guide to be fairly confusing.  Is there a way to avoid having to do this by opting out of using certain mods? 

 

6) The Core guide references ENBoost, but I've read that the lastest ENB already has ENBoost incorporated.  Just wanted to make sure that's true, i.e. that I don't need to separately install ENBoost.  Also it's a bit unclear which exact files I should download from enbdev.com.  Do I need this Antifreeze one?  Do I need the generic injector?  Or is this 0.254 file all I need?  If it matters, I plan to use the Vividian ENB recommended in the Legendary guide unless there's an updated recommendation forthcoming.

 

7) Lastly, the Core guide warns against installing the latest Mod Organizer.  Since several new versions of MO have been released since 1.1.2, I just wanted to ask if the STEP update that would allow the latest MO to be used was planned in the near future (and thus worth waiting for), or whether it's a ways off.  If it's a ways off, can I use the latetest MO if I don't use STEP patches or DDSopt?

 

Thanks in advance for any guidance.  It's very much appreciated.

[rothbardian]

Oops, missed that, thanks DoubleYou. :)

 

ENB question:

 

I got clarification earlier that I *don't* need to install  Boris Vorontsov's Antifreeze patch or his generic injector.

But I just downloaded ENB 0.254 and looked in the zip file to see that there are two separate folders: InjectorVersion and WrapperVersion. 

 

Should I pretty much assume that the wrapper version is what is used by default if an ENB doesn't specifically mention which one to use, e.g. with Natural lighting and Atmospheric (which doesn't seem to be CoT compatible either)? 

 

This ENB also requires "ENB Helper" -- is that good to have anyway regardless of what ENB you use, or does it have any compatibility issues?  https://www.dev-c.com/skyrim/enbhelper/

Edited July 15, 2014 by rothbardian

[Aiyen]

Wrapper is always what you want to use if possible. The Injector is there to solve a few compatibility issues with other 3rd party software that some people like to run with. So if wrapper fails then try the injector. And if that fails you most likely have something else preventing .dll hooking from happening in general. 

 

NLA comes with its own weather .esp hence why it is not compatible with other weathers mods without patching. 

 

ENB helper is most often included in presets that require it...it is mainly required for making multiple weathers functions and time of day functions work. 

There is not really any downside to having it on even if a preset does not use it. But in general you should always clear out the enbseries folder when you change preset so best to just delete it if you change to a preset that does not use it.