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A Brief Foreword:

This list is an addendum to the Beginner's Guide. If you are new to modding and haven't read that we strongly urge you to do so.
The Beginner's Guide will give you a solid understanding of the essential utilities needed for a stable modding experience.
It will also help you set up an absolutely necessary memory patch. Without an understanding of those tools and without the memory patch you should not be on this page yet.
Go read the Beginner's Guide, which links back to this page at the end.

What Is Considered Essential?:

Well, for the purpose of this guide, I've split this up into three sections:

• The first is 'truly essential mods'. These are mods that no one should be without for any reason ever. They fix thousands of issues, a lot of which are game breaking.
  They transcend personal opinion and are agreed upon by the community at large as necessary.

• The second section is ' highly suggested mods'. These are mods that, through community discussion, are seen as highly beneficial, though you can certainly play without them. They are mods that a lot of people can't live without and others could care less about. Even though many find them 100% necessary, they are not truly essential to the stability of the game.It will be up to you to research what they do and decide if it is something you need or not.

• The third section is 'optional mods'. These are mods that are highly debated in terms of necessity. If the first list is 99% agreed upon, and the second list is 75% agreed upon, I'd say these are 50/50. Great mods that are very popular but in no way universally essential. The necessity of these are entirely a matter of opinion and personal taste.Again, it will be up to you to research/test and figure out if any of these should be added to your personal 'essentials' list.

Truly Essential Mods

• Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE64) - This is explained and linked in the Beginner's Guide. Required to run a number of essential or 'Highly Suggested' mods.

  • Optional Add-on:
    SKSE.ini download - For those of you too lazy to set up the skse.ini yourselves, you can download it here and install like any other mod

• Unofficial Patches - This fixes thousands of bugs. Again, if you followed through with the Beginner's Guide you should have this installed and sorted already.

• SkyUI - Considered essential because of the Mod Configuration Menu, which a lot of other mods rely on. Again, this is outlined and installed in the Beginner's Guide.

• SSE Engine Fixes - Fixes a number of engine bugs present in the Special Edition and Classic, including decoupling waterflow to the in-game timer, double perk bug, 'false save corruption' bug, and more. Similar to 'Crash Fixes'. Read the description to see all of the present features.

Highly Suggested Mods

• More Informative Console - Replaces the console UI to show a great deal of information related to what is being targeted (actors, objects, etc.). Similar to MFG Console in Classic Skyrim, but more.

• Modern Brawl Bug Fix - from the USKP wiki: bugfixes that pertain to brawling while also under the influence of cloak spells of various types. See mod description for a better explanation.

• Better Dialogue Controls - Improves the dialogue boxes in game to work with keyboard+mouse. No more accidentally saying the wrong thing!

• Better MessageBox Controls - Same as the previous mod, but applies to all other message boxes (skill trees, map, etc)

• Realistic Ragdolls and Force - Exactly what it says.

• Particle and Subsurface Scattering Patch - Does not require ENB and will fix glowing waterfalls/streams and make light reflections look more natural.

• Flora Respawn Fix - Fixes an issue where flora won't respawn after harvesting no matter how long you wait.

• Dragon Stalking Fix - For the last time, I've told you I'm seeing other dragons! Please stop showing up out of the blue like this..

Optional Mods:

• Cutting Room Floor - This is a result of unfinished content created by bethesda but not included in the final release (most likely due to time constraints). This mod restores and finishes that content.

• The Choice Is Yours Free tape saturation plugin for mac. - You now have the option to decline quests. No more journal full of crap simply because you overheard a conversation or read a book.

• Alternate Start - Live Another LifeXBOX - The carriage ride intro to Skyrim is a very script heavy (and very fragile) piece of Skyrim. Quite a few mods can break this intro due to additional script latency. ASLAL lets you bypass the carriage ride and choose from one of many different starting points designed for roleplay

  • Alternatives:
    Skyrim UnboundXBOX - An alternative to Alternate Start listed above, this mod makes it possible for you to roleplay as a non-dragonborn character, as well as a bunch of other settings.

• A Quality World Map - Greatly improves the look of the map. Makes route planning so much easier. A must if you don't use fast travel.

• Cobb Controlmap Fix - Allows you to unbind gameplay keys from menu keys, so that changing Activate to something other than 'E' won't also ghost-change Use in menus to that other key.

Truly Essential Mods

• Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE) - This is explained and linked in the Beginner's Guide. You should have this installed and understand why it and it's memory patch are so important at this point.

  • Optional Add-on:
    SKSE.ini download - For those of you too lazy to set up the skse.ini yourselves, you can download it here and install like any other mod

• Unofficial Patches - These fix thousands of bugs. Again, if you followed through with the Beginner's Guide you should have these installed and sorted already.

• SkyUI - Considered essential because of the Mod Configuration Menu, which a lot of other mods rely on. Again, this is outlined and installed in the Beginner's Guide.

  • Optional Add-on:
    SkyUI-Away - For those of you that prefer the look of the vanilla menus but still need the MCM.

• Tom and jerry cartoon videos to watch. Crash Fixes - Has a number of fixes for crashing. Some are rare and not well tested (may cause more issues down the line), but the majority are well-tested and this can really help stability. Even if it can't prevent a crash sometimes it tells you why you crashed. Also has an optional memory allocation which would replace the skse memory patch.

Highly Suggested Mods

• Bug Fixes - Fixes a few long-standing bugs in the game, including vertical look sensitivity and the lip sync bug.

• MFG Console - Adds a ton more functionality to the control console. Makes identifying certain issues much easier and just generally provides more information for the user.

• Modern Brawl Bug Fix - Certain cloaking spells from mods cause brawls to break because of the way they are detected by the brawl scripts, this is a fix for that issue that will allow brawls to go on even with cloaking spell effects present.

• SkyTweak - This mod adds an MCM with literally hundreds of game balancing options. Compatible with everything and a great addition to any mod list. (See Grimy's Plugin in the Optifonal Mods list below)

• Grimy Utilities - From the same author as SkyTweak, this mod adds a wealth of features via MCM. When combined with SkyTweak you can effectively replace a lot of standalone mods. (see requirements on the mod page, all of which are listed here)

• Better Dialogue Controls - Improves the dialogue boxes in game to work with keyboard+mouse. No more accidentally saying the wrong thing!

• Better MessageBox Controls - Same as the previous mod, but applies to all other message boxes (skill trees, map, etc)

• Dead Body Collision Fix - Makes dead bodies actual physical objects with collision. No more walking through dead bodies.

• Dragon Stalking Fix - For the last time, I've told you I'm seeing other dragons! Please stop showing up out of the blue like this.. (this fix is included in Dragon Combat Overhaul and will conflict with it).

• Enchantment Reload Fix - Fixes a bug where enchanted items will jump in value and drain their charges much more quickly if the game is saved and then reloaded.

• Flora Respawn Fix - Fixes an issue where flora won't respawn after harvesting no matter how long you wait. (Wiseman303's Flora Fix is an alternative and has improved compatability with CACO.

• Realistic Ragdolls and Force - Exactly what it says.

• Particle and Subsurface Scattering Patch - Does not require ENB and will fix glowing waterfalls/streams and make light reflections look more natural.

• Fuz Roh Doh - Fixes issues with dialogue that don't have recorded audio as well as an issue with an engine bug causing the 'Force Subtitle' function to not work properly. Only necessary if you're using a mod with unvoiced dialogue. (Alternate Start has unvoiced dialogue).

Optional Mods:

• Cutting Room Floor - This is a result of unfinished content created by bethesda but not included in the final release (most likely due to time constraints). This mod restores and finishes that content.

• The Choice Is Yours - You now have the option to decline quests. No more journal full of crap simply because you overheard a conversation or read a book.

• RaceMenu - adds a ton more customization options to character creation.

• Alternate Start - Live Another Life - The carriage ride intro to Skyrim is a very script heavy (and very fragile) piece of Skyrim. Quite a few mods can break this intro due to additional script latency. ASLAL lets you bypass the carriage ride and choose from one of many different starting points designed for roleplay

  • Alternatives:
    Random Alternate Start - What it sounds like
    Skyrim Unbound - An alternative to Alternate Start listed above, this mod makes it possible for you to roleplay as a non-dragonborn character, as well as a bunch of other settings.

• A Quality World Map - Greatly improves the look of the map. Makes route planning so much easier. A must if you don't use fast travel.

  • Optional Add-ons:
    High Quality 3D Map - Better meshes/textures for the map,
    Atlas Map Markers - adds map markers for a bunch of vanilla locations that didn't have them (must discover location for marker to appear)

• Weapons and Armor Fixes - Remade - Fixes tons of values related to weapons and armors. Due to large amount of subjective changes this was not deemed fit for 'Highly Recommended'. some can't live without it, some can't stand it. You decide.

• Clothing and Clutter Fixes - Same author as WAFR, same concept. Covers clothing, jewelry, and misc items. Again, highly subjective so decide for yourself.

• Complete Crafting Overhaul Redone - Same author as WAFR and CCF. Similar in concept but attempts to fix crafting recipes and functionality. Again, highly subjective so decide for yourself.

• Cobb Positioner - Not only useful for decorating, but can be used to move glitched/clipped objects safely. Much easier than using the console for the task.