Before The Storm

Setting up a modded base for Skyrim: Special Edition.

This is a simple guide to the various steps that one should take before beginning to mod Skyrim. It assumes basic computer literacy, but not necessarily huge amounts of modding experience. The hope for this guide, like every other guide on this site, is that anyone can use it, regardless of previous experience with modding in Elder Scrolls games. All the mod guides that can be found on this site assume that these steps have been completed, and they won’t be repeated elsewhere. Note that Before The Storm does not contain any mods – it simply gives you the tools to begin. It is also not designed to be a ‘definitive guide’. I couldn’t give you all the information you might need, even if I set out to. But this is the set-up that works for me.

So, if you’re interested in exploring the world of Skyrim Special Edition modding, please continue. It’s good to have you here.

Prerequisites

I like to download these tools to a seperate ‘modding tools’ folder. They’ll all be run through Mod Organizer anyway, so no need to clutter up the Skyrim Special Edition folder with them.

• BethINI
  • Download the main file, extract it to your modding tools folder.

• LOOT
  • Download the main file, open it, and run the installer.exe. Install to your modding tools folder.

• Mod Organizer
  • Download the main file, and extract the contents to your modding tools folder. Create a shortcut on your desktop for the Mod Organizer executable – we’ll be using it a lot.

• SSEEdit
  • Download the main file, extract it to your modding tools folder.

• Wyre Bash
  • Download the standalone executable version, extract it to your modding tools folder.

Configuration

Install Skyrim Special Edition, or revert your current installation to a clean install.

Launch the game. Accept the auto-detected settings, or tweak them to your liking. Most of the heavy lifting in terms of game settings will be done by BethINI in the next step. While in-game, change any gameplay settings that you like. I generally turn off the save on rest/wait/travel/character menu options, and turn subtitles on.

Run BethINI. Select one of the presets – generally, high is more than enough for most systems. If your system struggles slightly, select low or medium – if you’ve got FPS to spare, go ultra. Don’t forget to check the ‘recommended tweaks’ box. You can change any of the .ini settings you want to now. I won’t go into detail on every setting, relying instead on BethINI‘s defaults. There are guides to .ini tweaking available elsewhere. Save and exit once complete.

Launch and set up Mod Organizer. Open the settings menu and pick a style, then add your Nexus login. Open the executables menu and add LOOT, SSEEdit, and Wyre Bash. Run LOOT to sort the vanilla game’s plugins. You might notice that LOOT shows you several errors within the DLC .esm files. We’ll be cleaning those shortly.

Create a vanilla profile by clicking on the profiles button and either renaming the default profile, or creating a new one entirely. This ensures you can easily switch back to a clean install at will. Create a new profile, and name it something of your choice – I use ‘Modded Base’. Leave the ‘default game settings’ checkbox unticked. We want Mod Organizer to use the .ini files created by BethINI. Switch to this profile now – we’re getting on to the modding itself.

Start SSEEdit through Mod Organizer. Select only the update.esm file. Once it has loaded, right click on update.esm and select ‘apply filter for cleaning’. Once completed, right click again and select ‘remove identical to master records’, then ‘undelete and disable references’. Close SSEEdit, making sure you remember to save the plugin and that ‘backup plugins’ is checked at the bottom. You should now have the cleaned copy of update.esm in your overwrite folder. The original is also in the overwrite, inside a folder called SEEEdit Backups. Open this folder properly, in your explorer, and remove all the extra text after .esm from the backup file, renaming it to simply update.esm. Drag this file back into the Skyrim Special Edition data folder within your Steam directory. Back in MO, right click on the overwrite button and select ‘create mod’. Name this mod Cleaned Vanilla ESMs. Now, you have the original .esm files in the data folder, and the new, cleaned ones in a mod, that can be activated and disabled at will. Do this for all three DLC .esms. Dawnguard requires cleaning twice – you’ll only want to rename and drag the first backup file. Just delete the second. Cleaned .esms can be dragged from the overwrite into the Cleaned Vanilla ESMs mod.

Now, you should have all your tools installed, and two profiles in MO – a vanilla profile, and your modded profile. Only one mod will be present in the left pane – your Cleaned Vanilla ESMs mod, that should be checked for the modded profile. This profile represents the most stable, well-prepared version of the game possible – .ini files created by BethINI, and cleaned .esms thanks to SSEEdit. Even if you’re not planning on adding any more mods to your game, this is a good place to be. If you are planning on adding mods though, it’s essential.

So now you can begin installing mods yourself, or look for the guides also found on this website. Or another guide entirely, I promise I won’t be offended. Whatever you do – enjoy the game.