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Daggerfall Unity mods thread

D.R.E.A.M. or retro rendering?


  • Total voters
    30

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,925
mindx2 DFU's mod manager only knows about .dfmod files, whereas some mods are just bundled replacement texture / audio files. Those won't show up in the DFU mod manager.
 

Bloodeyes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
2,946
Vortex mod manager works wonderfully for daggerfall unity

Savea a bit of time and hassle
Using it and it is very easy and streamlined. However, even though Vortex shows all the mods enabled when Daggerfall Unity starts and I click the mods button it still only shows the ones I listed above as active. I have no idea if the other mods are actually working?!!
Questpacks and new location mods won't show up in your mods list (nor do these go in your mods folder, install instructions are provided either on the UESP page or in the readme). What specific mods aren't showing up in your mod list?
 

mindx2

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Codex 2012 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire RPG Wokedex Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Vortex mod manager works wonderfully for daggerfall unity

Savea a bit of time and hassle
Using it and it is very easy and streamlined. However, even though Vortex shows all the mods enabled when Daggerfall Unity starts and I click the mods button it still only shows the ones I listed above as active. I have no idea if the other mods are actually working?!!
Questpacks and new location mods won't show up in your mods list (nor do these go in your mods folder, install instructions are provided either on the UESP page or in the readme). What specific mods aren't showing up in your mod list?
Out of all your "recommended" mods these ( Better Ambience, Birds in Daggerfall, Distant Terrain and Drafty Secret Doors) only show up within Daggerfall Unity itself. Vortex shows everything enabled. I just didn't realize all would not show up as enabled within the game itself. I think I'm all good now, thanks! :salute:
 

Bloodeyes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
2,946
Vortex mod manager works wonderfully for daggerfall unity

Savea a bit of time and hassle
Using it and it is very easy and streamlined. However, even though Vortex shows all the mods enabled when Daggerfall Unity starts and I click the mods button it still only shows the ones I listed above as active. I have no idea if the other mods are actually working?!!
Questpacks and new location mods won't show up in your mods list (nor do these go in your mods folder, install instructions are provided either on the UESP page or in the readme). What specific mods aren't showing up in your mod list?
Out of all your "recommended" mods these ( Better Ambience, Birds in Daggerfall, Distant Terrain and Drafty Secret Doors) only show up within Daggerfall Unity itself. Vortex shows everything enabled. I just didn't realize all would not show up as enabled within the game itself. I think I'm all good now, thanks! :salute:
I don't use vortex for this game. That must be what's caused the confusion. There is a mod manager function within the game itself so I don't see the need for it.
 

Replicante

Educated
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
61
Thanks for this post, I've never played Daggerfall before and it's incredibly helpful to have the modding aspect sorted out indeed. What I wonder is, should I activate smaller dungeons? what do you reckon, does it detract from the experience? It's 2021 and I'd rather not suffer through endless mazes
 

Bloodeyes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
2,946
Thanks for this post, I've never played Daggerfall before and it's incredibly helpful to have the modding aspect sorted out indeed. What I wonder is, should I activate smaller dungeons? what do you reckon, does it detract from the experience? It's 2021 and I'd rather not suffer through endless mazes
I'd say try the originals and if they're too much for you turn it on. I noticed quite a few broken quests using this feature but lots of people use it and don't experience that issue, so it may have been a mod conflict or a run of bad luck. You should be fine using it. Still, try the default dungeons first. The reason the dungeons were so terrible in the original Daggerfall was the inadequate automap. I genuinely have no idea how people persevered with the original. I love the look and feel of that game but the dungeons are unplayable to me, save for when I get lucky and find my objective early on. With DFU that issue is fixed. These will still likely be the largest, most maze like dungeons you have experienced in a game but once you acclimatize yourself to that and develop systems for dealing with them it's quite satisfying clearing them (you also level faster and get more loot with bigger dungeons).

What I suggest doing is this:

1. At character creation take the increased magery, 3x int in spell points advantage even if you're playing a low INT fighter build. You need around 70 spell points to be able to cast recall with low skill.
2. After clearing privateers hold get to a town with a mages guild. Most towns have one but ask the peasants if you can't find it. If they aren't rude to you spam asking them until they mark it on your map. If they are, ask another peasant. Only peasants outside will mark your map. Indoor peasants will only tell you what direction something is in.
3. Buy the circinate recall spell. It does the same as the created recall spell but its cheaper. This lets you teleport back to an anchor point. Set an anchor point just inside the dungeon entrance so you can drop loot at your wagon and leave when you're finished easily.
4. Make your own "free action" spell with 1 + 4 x 2 levels. This should cost 5 or 6 sp to cast and will save your life when you get paralyzed by spiders and other things. You won't need to replace this spell as even by level 5 it will last longer than you need it to to escape or kill what paralyzed you.
5. Make your own "levitate" spell with 1 + 1 x 2 levels. This should also be cheap to cast. You'll need this to access some areas of dungeons. For longer flights you can just cast it multiple times, but usually you'll only need to go up or down one level.
6. Make a spell of "jumping" 1+ 1 x 2 levels. You need this to crouch jump through some barriers in dungeons and it lets you jump hedges on your horse instead of going around.
7. *Most important* You can place markers on your automap with double left click and remove them with double right click. At every branching path I mark the path I didn't take. When you come back to explore that marker you remove it and when all markers are gone the dungeon is cleared. It's tedious at first but you quickly get fast at it.
8. If you decent enough SP make cure disease and cure poison spells with the highest possible base chance you can and set level improvements to level x 2 to get more base chance. It will still be a shit spell but if you've quicksaved after being poisoned or catching something (this will happen) it may be all that prevents having to revert to a previous hardsave.
9. You'll need a cheap to cast water breathing and water walking spell if you aren't taking the swimming skill. I go for 1 + 3 x 2 levels for each effect, so the spell costs 12 ish to cast. It quickly becomes longer lasting than you need. If you're taking the swimming skill you only need water breathing. Just cast it when you're about to drown to reset your breath timer.
10. In almost all cases you'll find your quest objective once you've cleared the dungeon. If you can't and it's a main quest then use the console cheat "tele2qspawn". If it's not a story quest you should heed the developers advice and accept failure as part of the intended gameplay experience. You'll only get a small loss in reputation with guilds for failing quests.
 
Last edited:

Replicante

Educated
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
61
Thanks man, that's really helpful. I think I got the basics down and I'm off to a good start. There is a very useful post here regarding blocks and dungeon navigating, you might want to link it in your post if you end up writing a beguinner's guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/Daggerfall...sh_this_game/cvwrz0b/?st=isayf5hq&sh=676e6f96

On the other hand I went for a pure magician built, despite advice to the contrary. But then again, it should be fun to struggle a bit. I also picked Swimming as minor skill, even tho it is trivial with proper spells, probably. Anyway, I made a "main attack spell" with long duration continuous damage to try and be efficient despite having to kite enemies quite a bit. It's probably far from a good design, but oh well:

6Zr4qpR
https://ibb.co/6Zr4qpR [/IMG]
6Zr4qpR
 

Bloodeyes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
2,946
Thanks man, that's really helpful. I think I got the basics down and I'm off to a good start. There is a very useful post here regarding blocks and dungeon navigating, you might want to link it in your post if you end up writing a beguinner's guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/Daggerfall...sh_this_game/cvwrz0b/?st=isayf5hq&sh=676e6f96

On the other hand I went for a pure magician built, despite advice to the contrary. But then again, it should be fun to struggle a bit. I also picked Swimming as minor skill, even tho it is trivial with proper spells, probably. Anyway, I made a "main attack spell" with long duration continuous damage to try and be efficient despite having to kite enemies quite a bit. It's probably far from a good design, but oh well:

6Zr4qpR
https://ibb.co/6Zr4qpR [/IMG]
6Zr4qpR
Wow that guide is great! I don't think it's necessary to play DFU but it's vital knowledge for anyone wanting to play the DOS original. I'll definitely link it in my OP as I think the knowledge it contains could be the difference between being able to play classic Daggerfall and just giving up and playing DFU as I always end up doing.
 

Brujoloco

Educated
Joined
Jan 6, 2018
Messages
72
Location
Venezuela
Man, its been ages since I tried DU ... This thread and a previous one are making me itch for a replay!

Though people at the morrowind modding community will probably look bad at me I think I will give it a try again ... I have been looking to lose some weeks in another rpg lately and sadly I cant stand any newer rpgs for more than a few hours :(

Nice informative thread!
 

mastroego

Arcane
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
10,406
Location
Italy
Bumping thread as I'm trying to get into this DFU mods business.
I hope the experts here are still around.
I dare even summoning Cliffworms in this thread.
These are the mods I've selected so far:

- Fixed paperdoll skin
- Fixed Dungeon Exteriors
- Unofficial Block Location and Model fixes
- Windmills of Daggerfall
- Taverns Redone
- World of Daggerfall Project
- Better Ambience
- Travel Options
- Wilderness Overhaul
- Mountains and Hills
- Basic Roads
- Daggerfall Expanded Textures
- Distant Terrain
(disable "Enable Improved Terrain" option)
- Birds in Daggerfall
- Improved Interior Lighting
- Dynamic Skies
- Detailed City Walls
- Real Grass
- Reasonable Blood
- Daggerfall Enemy Expansion
(needs to be placed before Vanilla Enhanced apparently)
- Vanilla Enhanced
- Famous Faces of the Iliac Bay
- Aquatic Sprites
- Lively Cities

- World Tooltips
- Rest Warning If Unwell
- Readied Spellcasting Hands
- Quest Offer Locations
- Ambient Text

- LevelUp Adjuster
- Repair Tools
- Bestiary
- Races Redone
- Skill Books
- Skulduggery - A Thief Overhaul
- Harvestable Crops
- Roleplay and Realism
- Roleplay and Realism - Items
- Climate and Calories
- Unleveled Loot
- Kab's Unleveled Spells
- Basic Magic Regen
- Darker Dungeons
- Drafty Secret Doors
- Training Service Overhaul
- Realistic Wagon
- Meaner Monsters
- Physical Combat And Armor Overhaul
- Vampiric Options
- Diverse Weapons
- Usable Starting Equipment
- Jewelry Additions

- Actions Framework v. 03

- Vanilla Quests Reranked
- Archaeologists
- Finding My Religion
- Prostitutes and Lovers
- Language Skills Overhaul
- Arena's Adventures
- Daggerfall Unity Quest Pack 1
- Temples & Templar Orders Quest Pack
- theJF Quest Pack
- Jobs of the Thieves Guild
- Warm Ashes
(avoiding Wilderness Encounters, left to the following mod)
- SIGIL
- Fixed Desert Architecture



I'd also add:
- The Penwick Papers
- Lousy Lycans
- Riding Enemies (not even sure how to install this9

...and possibly other stuff.



Comments welcome.
Is it even possible to play a Lycan or a Vampire without killing innocents?

EDIT 5:
added new mods and adjusted for load order.
 
Last edited:

Cliffworms

Novice
Joined
Dec 27, 2022
Messages
25
Location
Gothway Garden
Bumping thread as I'm trying to get into this DFU mods business.
I hope the experts here are still around.
I dare even summoning Cliffworms in this thread.
These are the mods I've selected so far:

- Fixed paperdoll skin
- Fixed Dungeon Exteriors
- Unofficial Block Location and Model fixes
- Windmills of Daggerfall
- Taverns Redone
- World of Daggerfall Project
- Better Ambience
- Travel Options
- Basic Roads
- Daggerfall Expanded Textures
- Distant Terrain
- Birds in Daggerfall
- Improved Interior Lighting
- Dynamic Skies
- Detailed City Walls
- Real Grass
- Reasonable Blood
- Vanilla Enhanced
- Famous Faces of the Iliac Bay
- Aquatic Sprites
- Lively Cities

- World Tooltips
- Rest Warning If Unwell
- Readied Spellcasting Hands
- Quest Offer Locations
- Ambient Text

- LevelUp Adjuster
- Repair Tools
- Bestiary
- Races Redone
- Skill Books
- Skulduggery - A Thief Overhaul
- Harvestable Crops
- Roleplay and Realism
- Roleplay and Realism - Items
- Climate and Calories
- Darker Dungeons
- Drafty Secret Doors
- Training Service Overhaul
- Realistic Wagon
- Meaner Monsters
- Physical Combat And Armor Overhaul
- Vampiric Options
- Diverse Weapons
- Usable Starting Equipment
- Starting equipment (conflicting with the above one?)
- Jewelry Additions

- Actions Framework v. 03
- Archaeologists
- Finding My Religion
- Prostitutes and Lovers
- Language Skills Overhaul
- Arena's Adventures
- Daggerfall Unity Quest Pack 1
- Temples & Templar Orders Quest Pack
- theJF Quest Pack
- Fixed Desert Architecture



I'd also add:
- The Penwick Papers
- Lousy Lycans
- Riding Enemies (not even sure how to install this9

...and possibly other stuff.



Comments welcome.
Is it even possible to play a Lycan or a Vampire without killing innocents?

EDIT 1:
added new mods and adjusted for load order.

EDIT 2:
de-activated Windmills as it conflicts with Fixed Desert Architecture, which I believe is necessary

I haven't played in some time, mind you, but looking at the list I'd say you should have some fun!
Use "Usable Starting Equipment" instead of the other one and actually avoid all mods by imsobadatnicknames. While he has good ideas, the execution is not and most of his mods bloat your save games and corrupt them. Other than that, I don't see any conflicting mods at first glance.

If you plan to play a thief you can also get Jobs of the Thieves Guild. (little self-promote here :P )
It adds 13 quests that deal with activities of the TG other than robberies.

Regarding Windmills and Fixed Desert Architecture, you can run both together. The difference is that desert farms won't have windmills because the game will load the ones from Fixed Desert Architecture. I'll make a patch to make it run with windmills.

- Realistic Wagon
so what makes it realistic?

Wagons require you buy a horse first, wagons and horse prices are much higher, wagons can break and need to be repaired from time to time, wagons and horses stay where you got off them (you can no longer summon them from your pants at anytime). At least you don't need to feed your horse... yet?
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
614
Strap Yourselves In
Use "Usable Starting Equipment" instead of the other one and actually avoid all mods by imsobadatnicknames. While he has good ideas, the execution is not and most of his mods bloat your save games and corrupt them. Other than that, I don't see any conflicting mods at first glance.
Really? Wow I wasn't aware of that; I currently use his Starting Equipment, Traveling Alchemists and Pilgrimages mods. I will edit my post in the other thread to call attention to these and will remove them from my own game. That's a shame because his mods seem so interesting, but save corruption is very worrisome danger.
 

mastroego

Arcane
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
10,406
Location
Italy

I haven't played in some time, mind you, but looking at the list I'd say you should have some fun!
Use "Usable Starting Equipment" instead of the other one and actually avoid all mods by imsobadatnicknames. While he has good ideas, the execution is not and most of his mods bloat your save games and corrupt them. Other than that, I don't see any conflicting mods at first glance.

If you plan to play a thief you can also get Jobs of the Thieves Guild. (little self-promote here :P )
It adds 13 quests that deal with activities of the TG other than robberies.

Regarding Windmills and Fixed Desert Architecture, you can run both together. The difference is that desert farms won't have windmills because the game will load the ones from Fixed Desert Architecture. I'll make a patch to make it run with windmills.
Thanks for the tips, I hadn't yet added any other mods by that author. It sucks, but stability is crucial.
I'll surely add Jobs of the Thieves Guild ;)
About Windmills, if it works as it is great, I'm not even sure I'd want to see windmills in the desert lands. I was afraid the conflict was more crippling.
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
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Messages
614
Strap Yourselves In
Hello! Coming back here from your post in the other thread.

I'm certainly no expert, just somebody who has been modding Bethesda games for a very long time. I messed around with modding Daggerfall Unity earlier on in its development, but there weren't very many mods back then and I was mostly playing other games so I stepped away for a while. I came back to it a bit under a year ago and there had been a bunch of mods released since then, and got to know many of them but again fell back off. I've returned to it for the third time over the past few weeks and gone through multiple iterations of my modlist with previous versions of Daggerfall Unity and updated to the latest version to where I finally sorted out of a stable, functional mod list which is the one I shared in the other thread. Just so you know that I'm not anything more than an extreme fan here and not a modder or anything.

Looking at your mod list, there really isn't anything that immediately jumps out at me as problematic as far as the mods I actually am familiar with, which include the majority in your list. There are a few however that I either once used but removed, or decided to hold off on, due to potential incompatibilities or bugs being reported, such as Taverns Redone and Detailed City Walls. The former may have been a conflict with something else I was determined to use, like Transparent Windows or when I was figuring out whether to use Unofficial Block Location and Model Fixes along with Red Brick Replacer; I felt uncertain about it ultimately and decided only to use the Transparent Windows and figured I'd look into it further at a later point. Detailed City Walls appears to have whatever minor issue that led me to abstain for the time being fixed and was evidently in relation to Daggerfall Expanded Textures, so that ought to be nothing to worry about.

Other mods though, like the Physical Combat and Armor Overhaul, Training Service Overhaul, Level-Up Adjuster etc I don't use because I feel they veer to far away from the way the game was intended to be played, so I really can't say whether or not you will experience any problems, but I don't believe so. Meaner Monsters I don't use either, mainly because some of the changes seem to be way too radical, though some of them are arguably much better. The monsters are already difficult in the game as it is and I spent so many years developing a certain approach to the game and leveling system that I am just not very interested in changing that all up, at least not at this point. I'm not criticizing your choices though, just pointing out why I don't use and thus can't really comment on several of your mod choices. Ultimately it looks like a decent list; I can't judge the load order by just looking at it but when I get home I can compare it to how I've set up mine and let you know what I think because that will surely remind me of what I had to move around and why.
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
614
Strap Yourselves In
Also I should add, that Daggerfal Unity is really much, MUCH easier to mod than Morrowind or Oblivion, for instance. No need to generate distant land, no need for a separate mod organizer, and it is not prone to crashing. Installing mods is elementary and the load order can be adjusted from within the launcher and it will save your adjustments. The way I modded it was to add a handful of mods at a time, start a new character and check things about, then add a few more, and any time I encountered a conflict I would try to determine what was causing it while playing, then go move around the load order or deactivate / remove the suspected mod and reloading to try again. For instance when I had that conflict with Dungeon Exteriors Fixed, easily one of the best mods for the game so far, I loaded back in after adjusting the load order and immediately started falling through the terrain lol. But Daggerfall Unity has console commands similar to the later Bethesda games, so I just TCL'd myself up back through the ground, negated the command, and I was back where I was before with everything working, all of the knights walking around like I mentioned, so I saved in place and reloaded it and everything has worked beautifully since then. So you can use the console commands to help determine mod conflicts or to get out of messy situations like that.

Your list really does look sound to me, and I would recommend installing them, adjusting your load order, and just start playing. Get out into the open world and check your draw distance; if you experience too many stutters or your FPS crawls when rendering distant terrain, you can make adjustments to the draw distance in the launcher options but also many of the mods you listed have tons of configurable variables accessible within the launcher as well, so the best thing to do is just experiment and adjust settings to where you get it just perfect for how you want it. The game already is so massive and just a very few key mods like Dungeon Exteriors Fixed, World of Daggerfall Project, Wilderness Overhaul, and SIGIL and/or Warm Ashes (I use both but only activate some of Warm Ashes on startup, because I found that with Warm Ashes wilderness encounters it got to where I seriously couldn't go a few feet without encountering vampires and shit lol, SIGIL handles it way better though I do like my graveyards, dungeons, ruins and so forth to be challenging so I keep Warm Ashes for those) are really all you need to turn the game into something more resembling the later games, where the space between towns and cities are actually filled with interesting things to explore. Anyway I hope you have a great time modding and playing, it is so much fun! I'm about to run but I'll check back in when I can to help with whatever I'm able to.
 

Cliffworms

Novice
Joined
Dec 27, 2022
Messages
25
Location
Gothway Garden
Detailed City Walls appears to have whatever minor issue that led me to abstain for the time being fixed and was evidently in relation to Daggerfall Expanded Textures, so that ought to be nothing to worry about.
The issue indeed came from Daggerfall Expanded Textures. It has been updated recently to fix the issue. Getting the latest version will do the trick. ;)
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
614
Strap Yourselves In
Detailed City Walls appears to have whatever minor issue that led me to abstain for the time being fixed and was evidently in relation to Daggerfall Expanded Textures, so that ought to be nothing to worry about.
The issue indeed came from Daggerfall Expanded Textures. It has been updated recently to fix the issue. Getting the latest version will do the trick. ;)
Very cool! After reading your comment yesterday I went and downloaded it, got rid of the three mods you advised against using (Pilgrimages, Traveling Alchemists, and Starting Equipment), and added the recently added HUD Torch Indicator. I also added the mod Context-Sensitive Interaction because, as I explained in another post in the other thread I play Daggerfall Unity with a controller due to my gaming setup being in very constrained quarters, so this mod REALLY helps a lot because it now automatically will switch the interaction mode which really the only time I change out of "grab" mode is when in towns or cities I'll use the "info" mode to click on every building I pass to cut down on having to ask for directions. That mod is huge for me because of how awkward my keyboard and mouse setup is at the moment. I'd like to add your Thieves Guild additional quests too, but I am using so many quest mods at the moment that I am waiting a bit to try the ones I already installed so that I don't get overwhelmed.
 

mastroego

Arcane
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
10,406
Location
Italy
So, uhm, I'm rebuilding the mod set-up in v. 1.0.0.

Is there any evidence of mods that no longer work with the V.1 release?
 

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