Some notes on additional mods I want to try

Both of my current playthroughs, Kendis and Harrowhark, are cluing me to additional aspects of Skyrim I feel like I’d definitely like to address with further modding. This post is to do a roundup of those things for my later reference.

Survival mode improvements

I’m enjoying Kendis’ run in Survival Mode so far but I’m really curious about some of the other mods that do a bunch of the same things. Here’s a list of the ones I’m eying:

SunHelm: This appears to be a current favorite for a replacement to Frostfall, since the latter is no longer being updated, and SunHelm is. Also, SunHelm is attempting to be a lot more lightweight.

Campfire: For a potentially better camping experience than the one given by the Camping content in the AE. Particularly the part where I could make my own bedroll? Because if you’re going to make me have to regularly sleep, why the fuck can’t I drop a bedroll somewhere without having to build a full campsite?

Survival Mode Improved – SKSE: By the same author who does SunHelm, this appears to be a re-implementation of Survival Mode as an SKSE plugin.

Survival Control Panel: Implements a control panel so you can toggle various aspects of Survival Mode. (May not need this if I’m running SunHelm? SunHelm has similar functionality, it looks like.)

Simple Bedrolls and Supplies – For Campfire: Considering this one, if Campfire by itself doesn’t let me plunk a bedroll down somewhere inside. Because I’ve come to be annoyed by how all the NPCs in the world can have bedrolls all over the frigging place, but I can’t? Even if I’m wearing a backpack that claims it has a bedroll? (Note to Future Me: this is a Skyrim mod on Nexus, not Skyrim Special Edition, but maybe that won’t be a problem?)

Basic Camp Gear or Simple Bedroll: Also considering these for craftable bedroll purposes.

Horses

In Kendis’ playthrough I’m definitely feeling the love for having a horse that doesn’t suck. The Wild Horses part of the AE has helped out a lot with Survival Mode, just because having a horse seems to be super critical.

In Harrow’s playthrough, I’m very much enjoying building a multi-follower party, and I’m enjoying being able to have at least one of my followers on horseback with me. But I’m wishing I could give horses to other followers as well.

And in both, I’m finding it vexing to have to spend time on finding my horse if it runs off during a fight. When I’m accustomed to being able to whistle for my horse whenever I want to in ESO, having to spend multiple minutes tromping around casting Detect Life just because my horse freaked out and ran off is definitely annoying.

But also, I’d really like to be able to send a horse home to a known location when I stop riding it. The various Wild Horses, even if you tame them, go back to the original locations you found them at. And the unicorn goes to the College of Winterhold. if I’ve got multiple houses, many of which will also have stables, I’d really love to just be able to assign these horses to various locations.

So I have three overall things I’d like to be able to do with horses:

1. Give them to followers if I have multiple horses
2. Call whatever horse I’m currently riding, if that horse isn’t already summonable, like Arvak or the Daedric horse
3. Assign a horse to a given stable, either one of my homes, or a city stable

Mods I want to poke at along these lines:

Immersive Horses: One of two competing larger mods that seems like it’d do the various things I want.

Convenient Horses: The other big horse mod I’m considering, and right now I’m leaning more towards this one, because it’s been updated more recently and in fact appears to still be under active development.

Immersive Stables: Kind of also eying this one, even though it’s not as big as the other two mods. I may just be happy with the idea of being able to assign a horse to a given stable, though I’m not sure if I’m a fan of doing so via a spell.

Call Your Horse: This plus Immersive Stables might be a lighter-weight version of what I want to do with horses?

Immersion

Some things that I’ve noticed primarily as part of Survival Mode but which could arguably improve the immersion of the game in general.

Wet and Cold SE: Make NPCs actually respond to weather conditions. Because it makes no goddamn sense to me that if in Survival Mode, I’m the only one who has to give a fuck about temperature. I want to see the NPCs also having to bundle up!

Turn of the Seasons: Adds proper visual changes to the environment to implement seasons! Cooooool. Or warm, as the case may be. 😀

Cloaks of Skyrim: Curious about this one partly for Survival Mode purposes, but also partly for how it works in general.

More later, maybe?

I may update this post later if I find other aspects in either of the current playthroughs that I’d like to adjust with mods.

Notes

• 1/10/2023: Added More element, and corrected the Cloaks of Skyrim link to go to the right mod.