Why SLaWF isn't included/compatible... This is coming up a lot, which means many of you aren't reading the description so I will address it here from a reply that was removed:
Fact of the matter is, SLaWF has been well considered and discussed amongst the Step Team. SLaWF has actually been a part of our Step SkyrimSE Guide for a long time. Here's the biggest reasons of why we've released VLC:
What SLaWF started out as, is not what SLaWF is today. It got pretty far outside its original scope of being a companion mod to USSEP. Many, many of SLaWF's edits could easily be incorporated into USSEP; of which there is even some overlap with it now. It also contains edits that are more of a personal preference vs correcting issues. I talked to WizKid about this scope creep many moons ago. They agreed that it didn't match up to their original scope and it probably should have been renamed, since the name is a bit of a misnomer now but at that point in its development it was what it was. There's nothing wrong with this and it often happens as mods develop. However, as a result, it's no longer what Step desires for our Guide and we have heard the same feedback from users here and there, as well as, it being echoed below in some posts.
Step's desire is to have a companion mod that is truly a companion to USSEP. That is our goal with this mod. VLC will be expanded upon over time and should be more comparable to SLaWF in the long run, but honed to a narrower scope. We don't plan to fix anything that USSEP can fix and we don't plan to add any extras to the mod. It's truly meant to fit into most landscape setups and stay within that narrow scope. For example, as of the initial release of VLC, we had 49 additional issues that we found during development. They aren't included in VLC because they are issues that USSEP can easily address by moving/rotating an object. As such, those types of issues will be reported to the UP Team for them to include throughout VLC's development.
Please load xEdit, and paste in the base and ref form IDs from just one of your screenshots, and share screenshots of that so we know what conflicts you have with these records.
I don't have this issue, and the base in the Step build is vanilla > Cathedral Landscapes, while the ref is vanilla > VLC ... no other conflicts. So my guess is you have something else conflicting. There's no need to place VLC at nearly the highest priority in your LO, and it would be useful to know what plugin is causing the unwanted conflict.
Nah I forgot to run Synthesis after I loaded VLC below MM (because I use Remove Landscape Vertex Colors patcher which is a direct conflict), I edited my original comment after you saw it maybe. It's all good now and VLC is back in its original place on my LO.
I'd like to ask another question though. Should Vanilla Landscape Corrections.esp be loaded after MajesticMountains.esp ? Or only with the ESMs. Is this correct? I have this and it looks good in game, but I don't know if changes from MMCM and ML should overwrite VLC or the other way around. Please confirm.
Note: WIZ_FoscsF is Snowy Collisions Sound Fixes with MMCM patch and load order doesn't matter, and Unblended needs to be after anything that touches roads which is ML
We use LOOT for sorting, and the VLC esm overrides the MM esm, but the MM esp overrides the VLC esp.
I was about to tell you that I haven't seen any issues with the above LO, but then I remembered a bad seam we had encountered, and I was able to fix it by loading VLC just after MM. This could open up other issues though. See this post for my findings, and let us know what you find. I don't have the time to delve into the cascade of xEdit conflicts with the relevant mods right now.
VLC loaded after MM and ML. Very happy with the results, it's absolutely seamless. Plus there are absolutely NO issues with rock clusters. Far better than Lawf. Endorsed. (All with BDS 3.6 and NSUTR)
Couldn't find any real issues either using speedmult 200+ around the map. Whatever issues I may find later won't even compare to the countless issues I had with Lawf. Plays well with Fire and Ember Clipping Fix from what I can tell so far (+ Wizkid's Complex Material Ash).
UPDATE: I've also verified that Vanilla Landscape Corrections.esp has no conflicts with MajesticMountains.esp, so their relative LOs don't matter. The problem I linked previously was caused by Snowy Landscapes In Snowy Regions.esp loading at higher priority than Vanilla Landscape Corrections.esp. Setting the SLSR esp at lower priority (or removing it altogether) resolves the issue.
Selwyn002 I have the same issue with roads. Adjusted my LO and reran the Vertex patcher but still have the same funky roads. Can you detail how you solved it? Did you drop VLC esp after the Vertex patcher esp? Thanks in advance!
Are you loading VLC after all landscape mods (except for water)? And no, the VLC esp should load before the patcher esp, as it uses VLC to apply the vertex edits (VLC is the master). The patcher esp should load after EVERYTHING touching landscape (pretty much anything Synthesis must be near the bottom of the LO, only Clear Map and Dyndolod goes lower).
If still having issues, would you be able to pastebin your LO? Or just screenshot where VLC and the patcher is in the LO.
Yeah VLC esp is loading after landscape mods, going to dbl check I don't have a sneaky landscape patch hanging out. One thing I have not done yet is rerun lods though I did disable my lods just to see if it made a difference. I am going to keep poking at it. I appreciate your deets!
"The problem I linked previously was caused by Snowy Landscapes In Snowy Regions.esp loading at higher priority than Vanilla Landscape Corrections.esp."
From this mod's description, SLSR is no longer needed: "Incorporates Snowy Landscape in Snowy Regions, which changes non-snowy landscape and objects in snowy regions to snowy versions"
Yeah, I know. We were only using it because SLSR was a master for the Smooth Shores patch. It's probably better to not use either of these though with VLC because of the landscape seams that result.
I am having this issue now. I had removed SLSR a while back, and I don't use the synthesis patcher mentioned above. It had been working fine but something changed recently (possibly sort order or the addition of another mod). I see that my VLC.esp is loaded before my MM.esp so I will try putting a sort rule in LOOT to fix that and regenerating LOD.
VLC should be your latest-loading, highest-priority landscape plugin, so anything touching a landscape with VLC conflicts should load at lower priority than VLC. Basically, because VLC doesn't touch anything unrelated to it's well-defined scope, any mod that conflicts with VLC should load before VLC. This obviously excludes VLC patches, because patches always load after what they patch.
Given that, any issues can be reported in the Patch Requests bug report.
VLC is intended as a more minimalist alternative to SLaWF. You can in theory run both in the same load order, but that would be redundant and negate the whole purpose of VLC (less patches needed)
Read the Description carefully. Install required mods and sort with LOOT. VLC should load after all other mods that touch landscape. In rare cases, a mod touching landscape should load after VLC (e.g., location mods), but a patch would often be required if that's the case.
I don't use LOOT. Should this mod load after Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods? I mean the .esp, of course.
Edit: Ok, downloaded the latest version of LOOT so I could confirm for everyone that Vanilla Landscape Corrections.esp does indeed go after Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods.esp
I have success just loading VLC AFTER Ryn's Lumber mills.
This is also true for Ryn's Dragon Mounds, I found similar issues with one of those that were fixed after I loaded this.
Note that I did have not yet been able to check *all* the mills and mounds, but I know it fixed Anga's mill and the dragon mound a little further down the road for me.
Random load order advice for folks: Load Great City of Winterhold after this mod or you will get some terrain height differences behind the ruined temple of Julianos. Loading TGC Winterhold after fixes it no problem.
Thank you for this, it's fixing so many seam issues I was having right out of the box. I was pulling my hair out sorting SLaWF patches, found someone mention this through a google search, and it basically instantly fixed everything in the places I was testing.
A version without the "Snowy Roads for Snowy Regions" part would be very nice as it conflicts with many Settlement mods in snowy regions and there are scant few patches for VLC currently.
217 comments
This is coming up a lot, which means many of you aren't reading the description so I will address it here from a reply that was removed:
Fact of the matter is, SLaWF has been well considered and discussed amongst the Step Team. SLaWF has actually been a part of our Step SkyrimSE Guide for a long time. Here's the biggest reasons of why we've released VLC:
What SLaWF started out as, is not what SLaWF is today. It got pretty far outside its original scope of being a companion mod to USSEP. Many, many of SLaWF's edits could easily be incorporated into USSEP; of which there is even some overlap with it now. It also contains edits that are more of a personal preference vs correcting issues. I talked to WizKid about this scope creep many moons ago. They agreed that it didn't match up to their original scope and it probably should have been renamed, since the name is a bit of a misnomer now but at that point in its development it was what it was. There's nothing wrong with this and it often happens as mods develop. However, as a result, it's no longer what Step desires for our Guide and we have heard the same feedback from users here and there, as well as, it being echoed below in some posts.
Step's desire is to have a companion mod that is truly a companion to USSEP. That is our goal with this mod. VLC will be expanded upon over time and should be more comparable to SLaWF in the long run, but honed to a narrower scope. We don't plan to fix anything that USSEP can fix and we don't plan to add any extras to the mod. It's truly meant to fit into most landscape setups and stay within that narrow scope. For example, as of the initial release of VLC, we had 49 additional issues that we found during development. They aren't included in VLC because they are issues that USSEP can easily address by moving/rotating an object. As such, those types of issues will be reported to the UP Team for them to include throughout VLC's development.
I don't have this issue, and the base in the Step build is vanilla > Cathedral Landscapes, while the ref is vanilla > VLC ... no other conflicts. So my guess is you have something else conflicting. There's no need to place VLC at nearly the highest priority in your LO, and it would be useful to know what plugin is causing the unwanted conflict.
Note: WIZ_FoscsF is Snowy Collisions Sound Fixes with MMCM patch and load order doesn't matter, and Unblended needs to be after anything that touches roads which is ML
I was about to tell you that I haven't seen any issues with the above LO, but then I remembered a bad seam we had encountered, and I was able to fix it by loading VLC just after MM. This could open up other issues though. See this post for my findings, and let us know what you find. I don't have the time to delve into the cascade of xEdit conflicts with the relevant mods right now.
Couldn't find any real issues either using speedmult 200+ around the map. Whatever issues I may find later won't even compare to the countless issues I had with Lawf. Plays well with Fire and Ember Clipping Fix from what I can tell so far (+ Wizkid's Complex Material Ash).
UPDATE: I've also verified that Vanilla Landscape Corrections.esp has no conflicts with MajesticMountains.esp, so their relative LOs don't matter. The problem I linked previously was caused by Snowy Landscapes In Snowy Regions.esp loading at higher priority than Vanilla Landscape Corrections.esp. Setting the SLSR esp at lower priority (or removing it altogether) resolves the issue.
If still having issues, would you be able to pastebin your LO? Or just screenshot where VLC and the patcher is in the LO.
"The problem I linked previously was caused by Snowy Landscapes In Snowy Regions.esp loading at higher priority than Vanilla Landscape Corrections.esp."
From this mod's description, SLSR is no longer needed: "Incorporates Snowy Landscape in Snowy Regions, which changes non-snowy landscape and objects in snowy regions to snowy versions"
Given that, any issues can be reported in the Patch Requests bug report.
Example :
VLC
LAndscape fixes for grass mods
CC grass mod fixes
I don't use LOOT. Should this mod load after Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods? I mean the .esp, of course.
Edit: Ok, downloaded the latest version of LOOT so I could confirm for everyone that Vanilla Landscape Corrections.esp does indeed go after Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods.esp
https://imgur.com/a/it6jPEz
This is also true for Ryn's Dragon Mounds, I found similar issues with one of those that were fixed after I loaded this.
Note that I did have not yet been able to check *all* the mills and mounds, but I know it fixed Anga's mill and the dragon mound a little further down the road for me.
Thank you for this, it's fixing so many seam issues I was having right out of the box. I was pulling my hair out sorting SLaWF patches, found someone mention this through a google search, and it basically instantly fixed everything in the places I was testing.
Just for let you know if i use Alternate Start and start with "i'm camping in the woods".
Without VLC
And With WLC :
Perhaps my screen are too little, link above for see the difference :)