Modular patches between Drengin's Blue Palace Terrace, Legacy of the Dragonborn v5, Palaces and Castles Enhanced, Enhanced Solitude, Enhanced Solitude Docks, Solitude Skyway.
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File credits
Thanks to cheesetoast8 for giving me explicit permission to use his work as a base in many parts of my patches. Also thanks to cheesetoast8 for giving me advice and playtest the BPT-PCE patch, discovering an important issue with a door conflict.
Thanks to original authors for all involved mods for creating those mods.
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So I started with the goal of patching Blue Palace Terrace with Palaces and Castles Enhanced, which is the biggest missing piece in this list that nobody else seems to be working on. I also wanted all other above-mentioned mods in my game.
After a survey of existing patches, I learned that existing patches vary wildly in both quality and flexibility. The most promising seems to be cheesetoast8's patches, which were very nice. Unfortunately, there were still downsides in that they did not play well with Imperial Mail, and every patch offered required LOTD which felt less flexible than I hoped.
I figured that, if I'm going to make a true BPT-PCE patch, and I'm going to tweak cheesetoast8's patches for my own game further anyway, then I might as well go all the way and see if I can recreate a more modular set of patches. So that's what I ended up doing.
A good amount of content in these patches were conflict resolution work found originally in cheesetoast8's patches, reused with his/her permission. I basically used cheesetoast8's patches as a starting point, refactored them to be a bit more modular, in some parts redid them to my own aesthetic tastes, added my PCE patch into the fray, and ended up with a new series of patches.
These patches had the following goals in mind:
As modular as possible - each patch handles one problem only, multiple patches are used together to handle multiple problems
As clean as possible - edits other than conflict resolution were kept to a minimum (though admittedly not zero - the exception being a new fancy Skyway courtyard door), and I tried really hard to remove accidental unnecessary edits and plugin record overrides
Provide a good base system of patches to plug my BPT-PCE patch into
Compatible with Imperial Mail and the BPT-Imperial Mail Patch
What Patches Do I Need? What Order?
For your reference, my current load order is the following (irrelevant mods I used for testing like AddItemMenu etc are omitted). Bolded are patches I offer. Patches I'm using/building on top of but come from other mods are linked to those other mods.
If you're using all source mods (BPT, PCE, LOTD, ES, ESD), then please use all patches and follow the order above. If you're omitting some source mods, then please omit patches accordingly, but try to follow the same above order. Other sensible load orders should theoretically work too but may be untested. Please report issues if you see them.
Note that these currently don't support a non-LOTD-patched Skyway, so if you're using vanilla Skyway then unfortunate I don't have a solution for it.
Also for your reference, the following are a list of special load order requirements that I've either intended or discovered good or necessary reasons for:
PCE must load after BPT
Solitude Skyway SE - Legacy of the Dragonborn Patch.esp (official Skyway patch for LOTD) must load AFTER Solitude Skyway SE - Enhanced Solitude Docks Patch.esp (official Skyway for LOTD)
my EnhancedSolitudeDocks-Fixes.esp should load BEFORE all my other patches
my BluePalaceTerrace-EnhancedSolitude-Patch.esp must load AFTER DBM_EnhancedSolitude_Patch.esp (official LOTD patch for ES)
my BluePalaceTerrace-LOTD-Skyway-ES-Patch.esp must load BEFORE my SolitudeSkyway-LOTD-ESD-Patch.esp
Full description below. Extremely detailed description and changelog available in the readme (see "Docs" tab)
Description of Patches
To give cheesetoast8 full credit for his work that I reused, all below bolded and yellow parts of the description are his work that I knowingly and intentionally reused with his/her permission, which basically meant I copied the records/values straight over in xEdit into my patches. The rest were my own work that I discovered and did myself in the CK, though some may have also overlapped with other parts of cheesetoast8's patches. Overall, I also want to thank cheesetoast8 for giving me advice and hints, and help me test the BPT-PCE patch a bit which resulted in discovering an issue that I later addressed.
Without further ado, here are a listing of the patches and what they do:
EnhancedSolitudeDocks-Fixes.esp This patch contain some miscellaneous fixes to issues inherent to ESD. There seems to be issues with ESD in general that I'm gradually discovering, that may make its way into this fixes plugin. It should be loaded BEFORE all other patches offered here. Currently, it contains the following:
Disables a floating piece of landscape that ESD seem to have forgotten to disable, that if left behind, will clip majorly with the structures in a new fort area it adds, breaking NPC pathing and causing all sorts of shenanigans.
Fixes up vertex heights with the navmesh in the same fort area; this resolves issue where NPC guards fail to move sensibly to respond to wildlife attacks
BluePalaceTerrace-LegacyOfTheDragonborn-Patch.esp This patch is needed if the user wants to use BPT with LOTD. It moves BPT's exterior corridor area into an interior cell, moves BPT's added door to Solitude City from outside the courtyard (where it conflicts with LOTD) to inside the courtyard, and resolves a lot of clipping/navmesh issues both in the Tamriel Worldspace and the Solitude Worldspace.
BluePalaceTerrace-PalacesCastlesEnhanced-Patch.esp This patch is needed if the user wants to use BPT with PCE. It surgically removes BPT's main palace interior in favor of PCE's main palace interior. It then adds doors between BPT and PCE areas turning the whole thing into a mega-palace that includes all PCE content, plus BPT's terrace, corridors, courtyard, basement, and secret argonian passage to the waters below. Added NPCs from BPT interior have been disabled with the exception of the priestess, who now lives and eats in the PCE interiors.
If this patch is used, PCE MUST load after BPT and any BPT-specific patches. Failing to do so will likely result in lots of shenanigans inside the Blue Palace's main interior. This patch relies on PCE winning all conflicting records with BPT.
BluePalaceTerrace-LOTD-PCE-Patch.esp This patch is additionally needed if the user wants to use BPT, LOTD, and PCE together. It combines and forwards a few door records between my BPT-LOTD and BPT-PCE patches so that both take effect in the game.
BluePalaceTerrace-EnhancedSolitude-Patch.esp This patch is needed if user wants to use BPT and ES together. It resolves the overlapping model replacements with fighting textures for the Blue Palace main model and the SolitudeBase model. It then addresses the severe clipping by both mods trying to heavily decorate the courtyard to their own respective visions, by disabling and rearranging objects from both mods and merging them into a singular combined vision. Aesthetically I tried to keep the good points of both original visions from BPT and ES. The resulting courtyard is clean, open, and regal, like the BPT courtyard, yet also full of life and beauty and color like the ES courtyard. Lastly, this patch adjusts some flag positions and disables some clipping objects just outside the courtyard. Lastly, it resolves content and navmesh conflicts at BPT's city garden area in favor of BPT winning everything.
If this patch is used together with LOTD, it should load after the official LOTD patch for Enhanced Solitude (DBM_EnhancedSolitude_Patch.esp). This is because both patches will try to revert ES's changes to SolitudeBase, but the BPT-ES patch would result in BPT's changes to SolitudeBase intact. Failing to do this can cause flickering textures and possibly other shenanigans in the courtyard area.
BluePalaceTerrace-LOTD-ES-Patch If the user wants to use BPT, LOTD, ES together, then the user will need my BPT-LOTD, BPT-ES, and additionally this patch, which will ensure BPT-LOTD wins navmesh conflicts between the two patches at the courtyard and museum areas.
BluePalaceTerrace-LOTD-Skyway-Patch.esp This patch is additionally needed if the user wants to use BPT, LOTD, Skyway together. It resolves areas of major clipping between BPT-added terrain and the LOTD-ified Skyway's eastern descent down to the ground. Here, the final flight of stairs were completely redone and navmesh fixed up. It additionally replaces an ugly and clipping door to the Blue Palace Courtyard with a fancier one in the exact same spot to better fit the courtyard's aesthetics.
BluePalaceTerrace-LOTD-Skyway-ES-Patch.esp This patch resolves navmesh conflicts between BPT-LOTD-Skyway and BPT-LOTD-ES, ensuring changes to the courtyard navmesh by both are carried through to the end result.
Currently, this patch needs to load BEFORE Skyway-LOTD-ESD patch (later in this list) to avoid a NAVI-caused weird behavior in the Skyway Transit cell.
BluePalaceTerrace-EnhancedSolitudeDocks-Patch.esp This patch is additionally needed if user wants to use BPT and ESD together. It resolves landscape conflicts between ESD and BPT. Without this, either the Argonian Burrow entrance will be blocked or there will be some major landscape gaps near a new ESD-added fort area, depending on load order. This patch carries forward correct changes so neither issues end up in the result.
SolitudeSkyway-LOTD-ESD-Patch.esp This patch is additionally needed if user wants to use Skyway, LOTD, and ESD together. It resolves conflicts between the official Skyway-LOTD patch (Solitude Skyway SE - Legacy of the Dragonborn Patch.esp) and the official Skyway-ESD patch (Solitude Skyway SE - Enhanced Solitude Docks Patch.esp), allowing the user to have the effect of both official Skyway patches. This patch brings forward Skyway-ESD's landscape and navmesh changes at the ground level. This patch doesn't solve all conflicts, but enough for BPT-LOTD-Skyway-ESD (below patch) to use as a base. In time I might grow this patch into a complete solution for LOTD+Skyway+ESD but for the time being it's only meant to be used together with BPT-LOTD-Skyway-ESD.
When used, the official Skyway-LOTD patch is expected to be loaded after the official Skyway-ESD patch in order to win on Skyway-related structure and navmesh changes. There is also a crucial change in the Skyway-LOTD patch that removes an LOTD door dependency on the ground navmesh, that inadvertently also fixes a LOTD-ESD incompatibility, that must be preserved in the final result.
This patch does not require the official LOTD patch for Enhanced Solitude (DBM_EnhancedSolitude_Patch.esp), but you are expected to have it since if you use ESD it means you use ES due to that unfortunate dependency, and if you use this patch it means you use LOTD. It is important that all Skyway-related patches to be loaded AFTER the LOTD patch for Enhanced Solitude, or there will be some navmesh issues and potentially door-breaking issues in LOTD. ES and ESD unfortunately have navmesh conflicts that ES and LOTD also share, so we cannot allow LOTD-ES patch to undo anything in ESD or patches trying to preserve ESD data over LOTD.
This patch does not fix navmesh issues inherent in ESD at the newly added fort area, and due to the nature of the patch, would unfortunately be incompatible with ESD-Fixes. An independent re-fixup of navmesh to be included with this patch may be attempted at a later iteration.
Currently, this patch needs to load AFTER BPT-LOTD-Skyway-ES patch (earlier in this list) to avoid a NAVI-caused weird behavior in the Skyway Transit cell.
BluePalaceTerrace-LOTD-Skyway-ESD-Patch.esp This patch is additionally needed if user wants to use BPT, LOTD, Skyway, and ESD together. It combines together the new navmesh structures from BPT-LOTD-Skyway's new staircase descent and the ESD-added fort area, so that the resulting navmesh works for both structural changes to the same cell. It also correctly generates NAVI based on combined navmesh results from Skyway-LOTD-ESD and BPT-LOTD-Skyway. It also fixes navmesh height issues in the ESD-added fort area, allowing NPCs to move sensibly.
You most likely will also want to use EnhancedSolitudeDocks-Fixes.esp (further up this list) to resolve some landscape clipping inherent in the original ESD mod. Make sure ESD-Fixes is loaded before all other compatibility patches here. It is important BPT-LOTD-Skyway-ESD to win navmesh over LOTD-Fixes in the fort area.
Each of the above patches (maybe with the exception of the ESD-Fixes patch) should solve to the best of my ability all current conflicts (at least, the ones that I know of) between the respective mods, and when used together they should solve all conflicts between all mods involved. Any sensible sub-combinations of my patches should theoretically work, and many such combinations have been tested, so feel free to leave out LOTD or leave out Skyway, etc... and simply don't install the associated patches.
Overall, these series of patches depend on vanilla Skyrim masters, USSEP, the original mods. As noted above in the description, some of my patches will also require/expect to be used together with, some of the following official patches:
All patches are provided as ESL-ified ESPs, of which you can have more than 4000 of so you should never need to worry about plugin count. All patches should have no ITMs, UDRs, or errors according to xEdit.
I tested many combinations of the patches in the following fashion:
Created a new character
Got a follower (Belrand from Solitude)
Traveled all main, obvious paths affected by the mods involved, such as throughout Solitude, the Blue Palace Courtyard, path "Around" the Blue Palace Terrace from corridors to terrace to drawbridge door, the Skyway end to end plus Fort Area, and the dockside road and surrounding areas added by ESD.
Tested as many crucial doors I can see and I know my mod touched. For example, all BPT/PCE/Skyway-related doors across many patch combinations should have been tested. Many ESD doors have also been tested (though not all due to the sheer amount of them - and ESD doors frequently have problems of their own).
Ensured all navmesh and door links (for both directions) were working and Belrand had no trouble following anywhere I go.
Scrutinized details of everything I saw, until no clipping due to conflict were unresolved
All issues I saw should have either been addressed, or cannot be reliably reproduced (i.e. it happened once but never saw it again).
Note that I have not tested all the nook and crannies of out-of-the-way area navmesh. Also note that I have not tested any content that only becomes available later in the game, and I have not tested any quests, though I tried to make changes that theoretically should not affect quests or future content.
Please note that other than what I included in the ESD-Fixes file, I did not attempt to address any bugs that may exist in the original mods.
Some of the newly added doors in my patch are not as perfect as I'd like (for example, it can be painfully obvious that there's really nothing behind the newly added Jarl Chamber's doors to the terrace if you look from above, which is doable with the third person camera). I will try to finetune it with a future iteration.
Compatibility
These patches are known to be incompatible with cheesetoast8's patches. If used together, there will be definitely be duplicate objects (since I reused some of his work), and will likely be other shenanigans. Please choose to use either his set of patches or mine, but not both. Consider the two set of patches to exist in separate universes from a technical standpoint.
These patches are also incompatible with Enhanced Solitude's series of BPT-related patches. I recommend to stay away from those patches because they predate today's version of BPT, and possibly also predate today's version of LOTD (either that or there's just quality issues, as I saw a lot of remaining clipping). Those patches try to fix the problem by giving you a replacement esp for BPT that's a super old version of BPT that is nowhere near as beautiful as Drengin's BPT in its modern form, which is most likely not what you want.
These patches are incompatible with Open Cities. I do not plan to support Open Cities.
There are no guarantees that these patches will be compatible with any other mod or patch (since I have not tested them). Use your best judgment.
