Expanded Towns and Cities SSE 0.7

Let me start by saying... I obviously haven't tested this with every single mod out there (as there are tens of hundreds of thousands.) So I can really only tell you how ETaC will behave with mods that I've already investigated. Hence, if you're unsure about a particular mod that you can't find on this list - feel free to ask. I'm happy to check it out.


Ars Metallica - Smithing Enhancement by Arthmoor.
Ask the Way by Sagittarius22.
Atlas Map Markers - Updated with MCM by kryptopyr.
Atlas Map Markers for Skyrim by kronixx.
Blowing in the Wind by sialivi. (No patch needed. Make sure ETaC is loaded -After- Blowing in the Wind SSE.esp.)
Bring Your Own Dead by Arthmoor. (Make sure ETaC is loaded -BEFORE- Bring Out Your Dead.esp.)
Companions and Followers SE by Scrabbulor. (Make sure ETaC is loaded -AFTER- Immersive Followers.esp.)
Convenient Carriages by tarlazo. (Make sure ETaC is loaded -AFTER- Convenient Carriages.esp.)
Cutting Room Floor by Arthmoor.
ESO Skyshards by Arthmoor.
Falskaar by AlexanderJVelicky.
Flayer's Practical Home by TheFlayer.
Helarchen Creek by Arthmoor.
Helgen Reborn by Mike Hancho aka Balok.
Holidays by isoku.
Hunters Not Bandits by raccoondance.
Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul by Shurah. (Make sure ETaC is loaded -AFTER- Immersive Citizens.esp.)
Immersive Patrols by Scrabbulor.
Inconsequential NPCs by Ripple.
Interesting NPCs by Kris Takahashi. (Make sure ETaC is loaded -AFTER- 3DNPCs.esp.)
Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods by code1k. (Make sure ETaC is loaded -AFTER- Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods.esp.)
Notice Board SE by MannyGT.
Oblivion Gates Remade by Pabulum.
Open Cities Skyrim by Arthmoor.
Populated Cities Towns Villages by Sands of Time Team. (Make sure ETaC is loaded -AFTER- Populated Cities Towns Villages.)
Qaxe's Questorium by Ahondara. (Make sure ETaC is loaded -AFTER- Qaxe's Questorium.)
Relighting Skyrim by JawZ and NovakDalton.
Simply Bigger Trees SE (formerly SkySight SBT) by fadingsignal.
SkyBirds - Airborne Perching Birds by Steve40.
Skyrim Better Roads (SkyBeRoads) by SilentResident.
Skyrim Bridges by BJS_336.
Skyrim Flora Overhaul by vurt.
Skyrim Souls - Unpaused Game Menus by Kassent. *
Touring Carriages by DayDreamer.
Unique Border Gates by Kelsenellenelvian.
Verdant - A Skyrim Grass Plugin by Preeum. (Make sure ETaC is loaded -AFTER- Verdant: A Skyrim Grass Plugin.esp.)
Veydosebrom - Grasses and Groundcover by Merkcy.
Winterhold Restored by Mannenyuki.

* Disable this mod's "Books" feature to avoid game freezing when picking up the book during The Collector Part 4 quest.


Better Docks by zebra0. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
Better Dynamic Snow by SparrowPrince, TechAngel85 and Brumbek. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhauls by Kinaga. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
CLARALUX SSE - Controllable Lights Everywhere by MyGoodEye and Scythe42. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
Hunter's Cabin of Riverwood by Okiir. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
JK's Skyrim by jkrojmal and Teabag86. (Use the "JK's Skyrim SE ETaC Compatible Replacer File" now available @ JK's Skyrim.)
Lanterns of Skyrim SE by MannyGT. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
Leaf Rest by Aukmat. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
Morskom Estate by Darkfox127 and Elianora. (LE ONLY --- Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
No Snow Under the Roof by PROMETHEUS_ts. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
Realistic Lighting Overhaul by The Realistic Lighting Team. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
Rigmor of Bruma by Rigmor. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
Rorikstead Wagons - Wagons Only by Th3 Duk3. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)
RS Children Overhaul by Azrael WTF and Ranaline. (Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.) *
Skyrim 3D Landscapes by mathy79. (SE ONLY --- Patch available in ETaC's Patches File; Make sure ETaC is loaded -AFTER- S3D.)
The Kids Are Alright SE by The Care Taker. (Patch available on The Kids Are Alright's page.)
Unique Locations - Riverwood Forest by Cooleoj. (SE ONLY --- Patch available in ETaC's Patches File.)

* The RS patches by MichelleBrujah & Seoulcalibre available HERE are out of date at the moment and don't include the kids added to Dawnstar and Rorikstead. So, if you have those, uninstall them, and grab the ones out of ETaC's installer.


ETaC will conflict with really any other town overhaul mods. (Things like Arthmoor's towns, or JK's Skyrim, or TPoS, etc.) That said, ETaC does, and will always, also offer a modular option (as do some of those mods), so you're free to pick and choose from whichever towns if you wanted to use. For example you could use ETaC's Riverwood with Arthmoor's Darkwater Crossing - That'd be fine. Just don't install a Darkwater with a Darkwater. Common sense and such lol.

Beginner's Shack in Riverwood by Elianora. (I'm working on a patch for this which should be out with the Morthal update.)
Hogor the Giant by Braiven. (Conflicts with ETaC Complete -and/or- Riverwood.)
Noble Warrior Cottage by smolbean69. (Conflicts with ETaC Complete -and/or- Riverwood.)
Rorikstead Wagons and Town Overhaul by Th3 Duk3. (Conflicts with ETaC Complete -and/or- Rorikstead.)

 

ETaC is... mostly, compatible with Skyrim Souls - Unpaused Game Menus, but if you're using ETaC Complete or ETaC Riverwood, you'll want to disable this mod's "Books" feature as it causes the game to freeze when picking up the final book during The Collector Part 4 quest.


The new version of ETaC is compatible with Blowing in the Wind -without- the need for patching. There will be a small conflict regarding one lonely Darkwater Crossing lantern, but that can be fixed by loading ETaC AFTER the Blowing in the Wind.esp. If you're not using an ETaC version with Darkwater Crossing, the load order doesn't matter at all, so do whatever grabs you. And-and-also-so...

NOTE: Blowing in the Wind's installer includes a mesh replacement for one of the old ETaC meshes, installing it won't hurt anything, but that folder "mjb_towns" doesn't exist anymore, meaning it also won't do anything, so I'd skip it to avoid ending up with crap in your data folder that you don't really need.


ETaC is fully compatible with both Interesting NPCs and Immersive Citizens. (And, as of v0.4 - Immersive Citizens compatibility has been completely built-in. You no longer need the MCM "patch" option which is why it's no longer there. Hopefully this will avoid any future confusion over how all that is working.)

Please be mindful of your load order though, as ETaC's files must be going -AFTER- Interesting NPCs and Immersive Citizens in order for this all to work properly.

Seriously. I cannot stress enough how - This is REALLY IMPORTANT lol. (If your load order is incorrect your navmesh will be COMPLETELY broken preventing your NPCs from navigating the world, quests might not function as expected, your markers will be stuck in inaccessible locations which will cause AI packages to fail... I mean, it might actually kill you. You could just drop dead *SPLAT*

So again, ETaC AFTER Interesting NPCs and Immersive Citizens. Please and thankyouverymuch.

 

NOTE:  IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING THE "FLOATING GRASS BUG" - This is NOT a problem with this mod specifically, and is instead an issue with grass textures not updating correctly. You can fix it by following these steps.

WELCOME! To my lovely little post on various things that can contribute to the perfect storm of stuff that might KILL your game. (Kill it dead.) (Splat.) aka "Most Commonly Addressed Issues for ETaC" aka "Stuff Jenna Says Entirely Too Often For Her Sanity." 

At the moment, this here contains a lot less info than it's LE counterpart, as I’m so far not entirely sure whatall problems from LE will have carried over and continue to be problems for SSE. (Memory issues? Hopefully not. Script issues? Maybe. Light flickering? Could be! Let’s all just wait and see how this plays out lol.) SO. This is mostly just generic stuff for now, until I get a handle on all that. 

Here is one thing I will talk about though, as I’m confident it’s still an issue, has been an issue, for pretty much ever, so I feel safe in making that assumption and that is...

 

What the hell is it? WELL. Load order is, as the name implies, the order that your mods are loading in (lol) it essentially organizes all of your conflicts by giving them a hierarchy. Any overlapping changes in a mod, will be overwritten by the mod going after it. So let’s say you have...

} Mod A
} Mod B

Loaded, in that order. Let’s say they’re both trying to a move a barrel in Riverwood. Mod B’s changes would be the one you’d see in-game since Mod B is being loaded after (therefore overwriting) Mod A.

Make sense? Fantastic.

Back to it then - LOOT is awesome, particularly for people who are not well versed in the intricacies of Load Order... BUT! Sadly, sometimes human intervention is still necessary. If you've made the decision to run a thousand mods (like the rest of us) then YOU are the one responsible for policing it. AND YES! This is a giant pain in your ass. It's a giant pain my ass too. It's a giant pain in all asses everywhere... but it's important.

In sum, treat LOOT as a guide - Run it once to get all your mods into a loose order, and then go through and re-arrange where needed.

What I personally do, along with, I’m sure, some others, and have been (somewhat) successful with so far (fingers crossed) is using a kindergarten approach to load order and trying and "group" my mods. Meaning that similar mods are all going together. (More on this shortly, but first...)

#01: Your ESM Files;
#02: Bug-Fix type Mods;
#03: Game Structure and/or UI Mods:
#04: Character Appearance Mods (For NPCs and Self);
#05: Mods that Add and/or Change Items;
#06: Mods that Add and/or Change NPCs;
#07: Mods that Add and/or Change Locations;
#08: Mods that Add and/or Change Navmesh; <-- This would be where ETaC goes.
#09: Texture Mods;
#10: Environmental Mods (things like Climates of Tamriel, Sounds of Skyrim, etc.);
#12: Mods with Gameplay Changes; Then,
#13: Reproccers, AV, and Bashed Patches.

ADDITIONAL NOTES
Generally speaking, all of your "fix" type mods (like HD texture pack fixes, or Unofficial patches) you want at the very tippy-top. Most other mods tend to fix things as they see them (this mod included), so you want these overwritten where necessary. 

Some follower mods add new locations. For example, the Arissa mod adds a new cave as part of her quest line. In cases like this, Arissa, and any follower mod that adds a new location, would be placed in your load order along with anything that adds or changes a location, and NOT with mods that add NPCs.

In a lot of cases, mods the add or change locations will also change navmesh. It's important that mods with major navmesh changes are loaded a bit lower on your list. So a mod that changes the porch outside an inn should be going before something like ETaC. It's better to have a single barrel not properly nav'd (and much easier to patch) than it would be to have all of the pathing in a town broken. (Your NPCs need it to move about in the world.)

If using it, very few mods should ever be loaded after your Bashed Patch. There are SOME exceptions, but those mods will likely tell you that upfront.

In closing… Even after following these guidelines you still need to make sure that you properly follow plugin placement rules as outlined by the mod author. So when in doubt – ASK THE MOD AUTHOR. They should know better than anybody else where their mod needs to be placed in relation to other mods to be able to function properly and with minimal conflicts.

 

Disabling and Enabling ETaC's Dynamic Lighting
If you disable ETaC's "dynamic lighting" via the MCM menu, and then later re-enable it you'll have to leave the edited area for the change to take effect. Meaning if you re-enable it while standing in Riverwood, you'll have to leave and re-enter Riverwood (or any ETaC edited town) for the lighting to kick back in. 

The Collector Quests
Note: If you have Dragonborn installed (which you do, since this is SE lol) it is possible (although rare) for the books to spawn in Soltheim dungeon boss chests. If you are in Skyrim, you will not see the quest marker pointing you to the chest's location until you travel to Solstheim. (This also happens with vanilla quests and has nothing to do with the mod. It's just how Skyrim handles the quest markers between worlds.) 

So if you have a Collector quest ticked active and are NOT seeing the quest marker on your map, this is probably why. 

Other Note - ETaC is... mostly, compatible with Skyrim Souls - Unpaused Game Menus, but you'll want to disable this mod's "Books" feature as it causes the game to freeze when picking up the final book during The Collector Part 4 quest.

 

So, as it turns out, there are some issues  with the way Skyrim SE is handling the editing of large references which causes LOD to show incorrectly resulting in texture flicker and also, sometimes, in those references to not show up in your game at all... fun! ETaC, as you might expect, edits a lot of large references. (Large references include - Houses, walkways, various landmasses, ... really all of the things and stuff you see making up your exteriors lol.) What I'm saying is... this is a problem. For me, personally, and also for you, and also for other people who makes mods. (You can read more about it HERE.)

Luckily, there's a way around it! Sort of! Per sheson... 

Quote

Currently, the only option to mitigate all bugs is to turn large references off as the system is pretty much fubar - like most of the new and "improved" features in Skyrim Special Edition.

Further luckily, someone already tested this for me (and also you guys) because they are awesome, and for that I give you vidalia...

Quote

Generating Dynamic LOD with large references disabled seems to have fixed the issue for me.

(Setting uLargeRefLODGridSize = 5 in SkyrimPrefs.ini)

So. If you're using ETaC with DynDOLOD - Do that. Set Large References Disabled (setting uLargeRefLODGridSize = 5 in SkyrimPrefs.ini) And you should be fine. Hooray?

If you are experiencing the "light flickering effect" while using ETaC (either with or without the ELFX) --- The issue actually stems from the way Skyrim handles light sources, and by "handles" I mean "limits" in that you can only have a set number (4) lights hiting a single surface at a time. If you have more than this set number they'll toggle on and off so as to make sure that only that set number are on at a given time. 

Obviously the problem is worsened when you're adding multiple mods that are adding lights, so if you've got ETaC with ELFX with LOS with Claralux with etc. etc. etc. You're going to get a lot of light flickering. Patching can reduce the number of lights, and ETaC *does* have patches for those mods, so if you're using any lighting mods, I'd suggest making sure you've also installed the patches.

NOTE: Your torch, and any NPC torches, also count as light sources and there's really very little I can do about that on my end. I can't change how it handles or limits the light sources and I can't control whoall is running around with torches. I *can* try and reduce the number of exterior lights (which I have done in the new version, and will continue to do for added towns) but even if there is only ONE light if you run up with a torch and a couple NPCs walk by with torches, you're still going to get the toggle.

With regard to exterior cells, there is also this...

For those of you having this issue in exterior cells, you can attempt a fix by adding (or adjusting) the following line in your Skyrim.ini file:

Quote

Helps prevent lighting “pop-in” by pushing back the distance at which the lights begin to toggle. { Source }

[General]
fFlickeringLightDistance=8192

SHADOW STRIPING
(The entirety of this has been hijacked from STEP. You can find the original here.)
One of the great things about ENBSeries is that it usually fixes shadow striping. Some users, however, will still experience this issue if they've edited their Skyrim INIs. In the screenshots below it's hard to tell from their reduced size in the gallery, but notice the fuzziness along the edges of the shadows and the lines across some of the textures like the post and rock; this is shadow striping.

Example #1
Example #2

If this is preset, adjust the iBlurDeferredShadowMask parameter in the SkyrimPrefs.ini file (MO users will have to adjust it in the INI Editor in MO). It will be set to its default from when the INI files where created by the game launcher, unless users have manually adjusted it. Turning this parameter down to a lower usually results in sharper shadow detail; however, turning it down too low can result in striping. Users can adjust this setting from 0-7. If striping occurs while ENBSeries is enabled, increase this parameter's value by one, save the change, and test the new setting in-game. Continue to repeat this process until the shadow striping is gone. Usually between 3 and 5 are the best values.

If the above is not helping or making the shadows too blurry, adjusting the fShadowDistance parameter may also help. This is the distance at which shadows are drawn from the object. Decreasing this will make these shadows less elongated and help to eliminate striping at lower iBlurDeferredShadowMask values; however, adjusting this value too long can also result in unnatural looking shadows.

If you are experiencing strange phantom banging sounds in most of your interior cells, this is not actually an issue with this mod, and is instead an issue with Skyrim's fragile-little-flower physics engine. It generally occurs when you've disabled your vsync or if you've got unnecessarily high FPS...

 

The number one "fix" on this forum for Skyrim is to disable vSync through the "iPresentInterval = 0" tweak in the INI file. However over the last week or so it's come to many people's attention that disabling vSync this way causes all manner of bugs and glitches...

CRAZY PHYSICS
Allowing your FPS to go over 60fps causes the physics engine to go a bit out of control. The slightest touch, even opening a door, can send pots and pans 10 foot away flying all over the place. Whilst this may seem funny, it can have disastrous consequences if a really important item flies so fast it gltches out of the playable area.

This can however be solved by limiting your FPS to 60 or lower.

The sounds are just a result of "the physics engine going a bit out of control" - You can read more about this here.

As the quote explains, this will tell Skyrim to push back the distance at which it beings with all the light flickering.