NOTE:
This compilation of mods is part of a larger Modlist. If this is the first time seeing the Ai Cave Modlist please check out the landing page first!

Initial Steps are Critical

Deleting Bethesda.net Mods

In the main menu of Skyrim, hit the mods button. When everything loads, make sure that any mods you have under the “My Library” category are deleted. This should be the second category from the top.

To do this, click on each mod in the list and hit “Delete”. Then select “Yes” in the “are you sure?” prompt.

After you’ve deleted all your Bethesda.net mods, you should no longer have a “My Library” category and at this point you’re done.

Uninstall Other Mod Managers

If you were modding your Skyrim Special Edition game with another mod manager before starting this modlist, you need to make certain that it will never modify your game’s data folder by adding new files. If you are using this other mod manager for other games as well you should take SSE off the list of managed games. An alternative to this, and one that I would recommend for the vast majority of you, is to simply uninstall any other mod managers you were using. This includes Vortex, Nexus Mod Manager, Wrye Bash or anything else. If you have MO2 you should also uninstall it so we can reinstall it in a (most likely) different location. Because this process is different for each manager, I leave this task to you. In most cases, you will just have to track down the applications files or simply use the control panel uninstall window if it is supported.

Some of you may be wondering why you can’t use two mod managers together. Technically you can but mixing mod managers is a very bad practice as it’s a good way to mix up your mods and create hidden conflicts. Besides, it’s much simpler to stick to one anyway. For this Modlist, we will be using Mod Organizer 2 exclusively as it is the most powerful and versatile mod manager out there. Because it is specifically designed for use with Creation Engine games, it has many robust features that make troubleshooting potential conflicts easy! I also firmly believe that anyone who understands the fundamentals of modding, will be able to use MO2 without much trouble.

Reinstalling Skyrim

Installing Mod Organizer 2

Installing File Editing Tools

Now we need to take care of the installation of a few basic tools that we’ll be needing to edit and manipulate files throughout this Modlist. I’ll explain what each of these do as we go through them. The overarching idea behind the grouping of these application is that they all only edit or manipulate single files. They cannot load multiple plugins and do not require access to the game’s Data folder.

7-Zip

7-Zip is an archive extracting software that allows us to unpackage mods that we need to install manually. It also allows to create our own archives that we can add to the MO2 downloads list and compress files. Archives exist because they compress the files stored inside them into a single file that is smaller and better suited to being sent over the web. During a regular mod install, MO2 unpackages mods for us so we don’t have to worry about them. Unfortunately some mods like SKSE64 cannot be installed this way so 7-Zip is needed.

Bethesda Archive Extractor

While 7-Zip opens generic archive file types like zip, 7z, rar and others, Bethesda Archive Extractor (BAE for short) opens proprietary Bethesda archives. These have the .bsa extension. While some authors package their mod’s files in a loose format, others rely on bsas for faster loading times. BAE will help us out when it comes time to modify or manipulate these archives.

BAE can be found on the Fallout 4 Nexus here, but that’s OK because it can be used for Skyrim’s .bsa archives aswell. Download the main file manually and place the archive in your Modding Tools folder. From here you can extract it with 7-Zip. If you don’t know how to do that, simply right click the archive after it’s in your Tools folder and go to “7-Zip > Extact to ‘BAE…'”. You can then rename the newly created folder to “Bethesda Archive Extractor” or just “BAE” and delete the archive.

FFdec (Free Flash Decompiler)

The Free Flash Decompiler is the applications that we will be using to open .swf files. These files contain the information necessary for the game’s various menus to function. This includes everything from the main menu to the item menu and even the cursor. For the most part, we will only be using this program to change the interface elements to be 60 FPS.

Head over to the FFdec Github and download the ZIP archive (second one from the top).

Move the downloaded archive into your Modding Tools folder and extract it in your Modding Tools folder the same way you did with BAE. You can then rename the folder to just “FFdec” and delete the archive. Keep in mind that this is only used to open and edit .swf files and therefore does not need to be launched from MO2.

Skyrim Audio Converter

Skyrim Audio Converter is a tool we’ll be using in the Audio module to convert audio files to certain formats. Typically this will be from .mp3 or .wav to .xwm. This is a handy application to have in general when playing around with audio files as .xwm cannot easily be played from most media players.

Skyrim Audio Converter can be found on the Oldrim Nexus here. Just like BAE it works perfectly well with Special Edition files. Download the main file manually and place it in your Modding Tools folder. Extract with 7-Zip and rename the file to “Skyrim Audio Converter”.

NifSkope

NifSkope is an application that can be used to modify the .nif file format used by the game’s 3D models. While it doesn’t allow you to modify vertex positions directly or anything of that nature, the power of this application lies in it’s ability to edit shaders, texture paths and other values the files may have without actually having converting the mesh to a different format (a long and arduous process). It even allows you to modify UV mapping. Sadly, complete UV regeneration isn’t supported but even the modification of UVs is a god send given the game’s terrible texture seams.

Download the latest version of NifSkope from their Github page here. Scroll down through the patch notes of the most recent release until you find the assets section, click on the “NifSkope.7z” file to begin installing the archive. It should look something like this:

Just like you’ve done with other applications, extract the 7-Zip file into your Modding Tools folder and name it “NifSkope”. When you try to open a .nif file for the first time, windows will ask you which application you will want to use for that file type. Point it to the NifSkope executable in that directory and check the “always use this application for this file type” button in the dialogue.

BethINI

BethINI is a tool that we’ll be using to optimize our skyrim.ini and skyrimprefs.ini. If you don’t know, these are the files where many of the Skyrim game and engine settings are stored. Unfortunately Bethesda kinda threw in the values for these haphazardly so in order to improve performance, graphics and stability, we will be using BethINI to set these to values optimized by the Modding Community.

Installing SDK Tools

Software Development Kit, or SDK for short, is an acronym used to refer to applications that allow you to design or modify elements within a game Engine. In this Modlist, “SDK Tools” refers to applications that need the Data folder files to run properly. The reason these are separated out is because we have to take special care of executables that need Data folder files as we are using MO2. I’ll talk about that shortly, for now just install the next two applications.

Creation Kit

The Creation Kit (or CK for short) is the official SDK for the Creation Engine. Every Bethesda game to date has it own version of the Creation Kit so we will have to download the version for the Special Edition from the Bethesda.net launcher… which unfortunately means we have to install the Bethesda.net launcher. It sucks, I know. On Oldrim, the Creation Kit could be simply installed from Steam but this is not the case with SSE. Anyway head over to Bethesda.net, click the menu in the top left corner of the site and scroll down to hit the download link below.

Install their launcher, like you would any other DRM, to the location of your choice. Once you finish the download, open up the Launcher and log in (yes, you’ll have to create a log in too…). When you’re finally in, hit the “>>” button in the top left to access all the applications, hit “Creation Kit: Skyrim” and then install it. When the download and installation finishes, you can close out of the launcher. The Creation Kit will have automatically been installed to your SSE Game Folder and from here you can simply add them to the MO2 executable drop down list.

Creation Kit Fixes

Just like everything else that Bethesda puts out, the CK is filled with numerous bugs and issues. Crashes and warnings are a norm. Fortunately, by the grace of the modding community, there is a solution so we’ll be installing it. Head over to the Creation Kit Fixes Nexus page, go to the files tab and manually download the main “CK64Fixes Release” and “FaceFXWrapper” files.

To install the mod, head to your Skyrim game folder (directory where SkyrimSE.exe is). Then open up the first “CK64Fixes Release” archive with the 7-Zip File Manager and drag the files contained within over to the Skyrim game folder. Do the same with the Tools folder contained in the “FaceFXWrapper” archive. At this point, you have installed Creation Kit Fixes.

xEdit

Note 6/1/20: Version 4.0.3 of xEdit has a critical bug where the cleaning process breaks additional exterior worldspaces like Apocrypha and Soul Cairn. For this reason cleaning should be done on version 4.0.3b of xEdit which is currently in experimental mode so you have to download it from their discord here. Use this version until the Nexus page is updated. This version does not have an Auto Clean executable so ignore that part for now. I will remove this note when xEdit’s Nexus page is updated.

xEdit is an application that allows us to view, edit and manipulate records inside Creation Engine plugin files themselves. Also known as SSEEdit, this basic yet feature rich editor is an absolute necessity for both mod users and mod authors. As users, we will mainly be using xEdit to clean dirty edits from official DLC and any other mods that haven’t already been cleaned. In a few extraneous cases, we will also be editing record values manually, either to forward necessary changes from other mods or to make them better suited to our Modlist.

To install xEdit, simply head over to the SSEEdit Nexus page and manually download the main file. Then using using 7-Zip, extract the archive in your Modding Tools folder just like you did with FFdec. You can then rename the folder to just “SSEEdit” and delete the archive. Note that when you add xEdit to your list of executables in the next step, you will need to add both SSEEdit.exe and SSEEditQuickQutoClean.exe.

Adding Executables to MO2

Because MO2 uses a virtual file system or VFS to create your Skyrim data folder each time your run the game, MO2 must also generate the data folder for SDK Tools and certain other applications. As a general rule, if an application looks at the files in your Data folder through the process of running, the executable will need to be run through MO2. For this reason, we will need to add the Creation Kit, xEdit and later SKSE to our upper right list of executables as seen below. Note that certain applications will be added automatically. 🙂

To do this, simply hit “<Edit…>” in the executables list and then hit the blue plus icon in the top left of the “Modify Executables” window as seen below. For each application (Creation Kit, SSEEdit and SSEEditQuickAutoClean), name it something appropriate. In the “Binary” field, hit the “…” button and find the executable file (.exe extension) in its installation path. You can optionally also put that installation path in “Start in” but technically that isn’t required. I would also select “Use Application’s Icon for shortcuts” to give each executable a distinct look in your list.

Now you can run the selected application the executables list by hitting the run button. This is how all applications that need access to the Skyrim Special Edition data folder should be ran.

Creating a Profile

As you follow along with the modules in BMS, you’ll want to have a way of keeping things organized. The first thing that you should do is rename the “default” profile to “The Best Modlist”. You can do this by hitting the profile drop down in the top left and selecting “<Manage…>”. From there, make sure default is highlighted and hit “Rename”. Type the new name into the window that appears. Consult the images bellow for more info.

This will be the main profile you use as you mod your game. You can also create profiles for specific modules if you want but this isn’t necessary. If ever you need to do some testing with mods or troubleshoot a problem, simply copy this profile by hitting “Copy” on the “<Manage…>” menu with the The Best Modlist profile selected. This will allow you disable and enable mods freely on your duplicate profile without touching your main modlist.

Cleaning the DLC Plugins

Unfortunately, one of the things that Bethesda did not do was remove the dirty edits from their official DLC and Update plugins… That means we will have to do it ourselves. Dirty edits are essentially meaningless records or record changes that are not needed for plugin functionality. These are usually accidentally created during development in the Creation Kit and should be removed to avoid unnecessary conflicts.

Note 6/1/20: Version 4.0.3 of xEdit has a critical bug where the cleaning process breaks additional exterior worldspaces like Apocrypha and Soul Cairn. For this reason cleaning should be done on version 4.0.3b of xEdit which is currently in experimental mode so you have to download it from their discord here. Install it per the above instructions above and replace the old install. Newer releases should have this fixed when they’re available. For this version you will need to add the “-sse” and “-quickautoclean” arguments in the executable field for the xEdit executable to make sure xEdit is working with the correct game and launches in auto clean mode.

Getting the Correct Game Version

Just because we cleanly reinstalled the base game earlier doesn’t mean that we have the right version to start modding. This is because Bethesda updates Skyrim with Creation Club content every so often and this leads to the breakage of many SKSE plugin mods with DLL files. For this reason, The Best Modlist for Skyrim will always stay on the version of Skyrim that is most compatible with mods.

Halting Automatic Steam Updates

First, let’s make sure that Skyrim Special Edition will never update without our permission. Open up Steam, find Special Edition, right click it and select “Properties…”. In the “UPDATES” tab, make sure “Only update this game when I launch it” is selected in the Automatic updates drop down list. Keep in mind that this only prevents updates if we launch Skyrim from SKSE in MO2 (we’ll talk about SKSE first thing in the Essentials Module), if you launch the game from Steam it will still update and you will need to use the below process to revert the game again if you do not have a backup.

Which Version of SSE do I Need?

The currently supported version of Skyrim you’ll need to follow BMS can be seen below and on the landing page. If the “Latest Skyrim Version” seen below is red, you will need to revert, otherwise you can skip the next steps.

Supported Skyrim Version: 1.5.97
Latest Skyrim Version: 1.5.97

Reverting Special Edition to a Prior Version

The easiest way to do this is to have the “SkyrimSE.exe” file backed up prior but since some do not have that luxury, we will need to download it from Steam ourselves. To start, we will need three pieces of information: the Skyrim AppID, the Executible’s DepotID and ManefestID of the version we need. I will keep these up to date below but on the off chance something happens, I’m going to include instructions on how to get these. The AppID and DepotID are unlikely to change but it’s possible that the ManifestID could be different. It never hurts to double check.

To find the below information manually, follow these steps:

1. Head to SteamDB
2. Search “Skyrim” in the top Search Bar
3. Click on the AppID of the one labeled “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition”
4. Hit the “Depots” tab on the left
5. Click the DepotID of the one labeled “Skyrim Special Edition exe”
6. Hit the “Manifests” tab on the left
7. Use the Manifest ID of the date that matches the Skyrim Update you were looking for. You can check against the dates on this page.

IDs for Skyrim Version 1.5.97
AppID: 489830
DepotID: 489833
ManifestID: 2289561010626853674

Downloading the Executible

Note: This process has been hit or miss for many people. This is how it worked for me but please let me know if you have any issues with this process on my Discord server in the #discussion channel.

To do this we will need to install a tool because Steam has made this process difficult for use recently. First, you will need to download the .NET Core Runtime. Hit the “Download .NET Core Runtime” button on the page and select the x64 version. Run the exe when it’s finished downloading and hit “Install”. Make sure to restart your PC if after successfully installing these before moving on.

Next, install the latest version of DepotDownloader. It’s the first zip file under “Assets”. In my time playing around with this application, I had the most success when this program was on my root C: drive. Move the archive there, right click it and under 7-Zip select Extract to “depotdownloader…”. You can then delete the archive. From here, rename the new folder to just “depotDownloader”.

Now we can actually install the SkyrimSE executable we need. Hit Windows + r on your keyboard and type “cmd” in the run menu to open up the windows command prompt. From here type “cd\”, hit enter and then type “cd depotDownloader”. Hit enter again. This puts us in the correct directory to run the application.

To start the download we can enter the following command and replace the uppercase IDs with their correct values and STEAMUSERNAME with your Steam account name:

“depotdownloader.bat -app APPID -depot DEPOTID -manifest MANIFESTID -username STEAMUSERNAME -dir c:\depotDownloader”

You will then be prompted to enter your Steam password. For me it wasn’t visually showing up but I could still type it in by memory and hit enter. Finally, it will ask you for the Steam Guard key that Steam has sent to your account’s email. After you type that in and hit enter you should find the “SkyrimSE.exe” in your depotDownloader Folder. From there simply move it to your Skyrim game folder and replace the existing one. I would also recommend backing it up for the future just in case by copying it in the same directory and renaming it “SkyrimSE_1.5.80.exe”. To use it later, simply rename it back to “SkyrimSE.exe”.

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