Guide:System Setup Guide

About this Guide

This Guide will walk users through setting up their system for a modded gaming experience for Bethesda games. All of our game modding guides will reference steps from this Guide. Though this Guide is specific to how Step Modification recommends setting up a system for our modding guides, all users should find this Guide helpful for setting up an organized structure and completing pre-modding steps.

Installations

Modding Folder

First, users need to select, and set up, a folder to use for most of their modding. Due to issues with some modding programs and Windows User Account Control (UAC), STEP recommends using a location outside of "C:\Program Files\" or "C:\Program Files (x86)\". For all our Modding Guides we recommend users create the following folder: C:\Modding\

STEP recommend the "C:\Modding\" location due to using Mod Organizer 2 "Instances" for our Guides. Using Instances and installing tool the to C: drive will keep MO2's data and other third-party tools located on the same drive. Doing so seems to alleviate potential issues. However, users should consider the space requirements for modding a game. This includes all the mods installed. Keep in mind, when using MO2 Instances such mods will be kept on the C: drive. For a heavily modded game users should expect to have at least 50GBs of free space on the drive chosen for each game planned to be modded. For example, a Step Administrator's system is currently using ~80GBs for Skyrim LE and Skyrim SE, combined, just for the mods. That doesn't include the game installations, which is covered below.

Users who don't have enough space on their C: drive, can create the Modding folder anywhere of their choosing. They may also install MO2 as a portable application, if desired. We will provide notes for these users, where appropriate.

Folder Structure

Next users need to create new folders within the Modding folder to set up the structure for future use. At this time, STEP recommends the following folder structure:

• ..\Modding\Tools\

Steam Installation

Steam is a digital distribution platform from Valve used for purchasing and playing video games. Its program by the same name (Steam) is used to purchase, download, and install digital games from their online store.

Users should not install Steam a location controlled by UAC. When choosing a location, mind the space requirements for the games that will be installed. If space permits, we recommend the ..\Modding\ folder created above, however, many users opt to install their games to a separate drive reserved for game installations.

Steam can be installed one of two ways:

1. Purchase the physical copy of the game from a retailer:
   1. Insert the game disk into your disk drive.
   2. If the installer doesn't run automatically, open the disk from Explorer and run "Setup.exe".
   3. Follow the on-screen instructions to install Steam (see video link below)
2. Download Steam from their website and install it:
   1. Navigate to the Steam website,
   2. Download the Steam installer
   3. Navigate to your downloads location and launch "SteamSetup.exe" (see video link below).

After installation the Modding folder structure should reflect the following:

• ..\Modding\Steam\ (optional; Steam and games may be installed elsewhere)
• ..\Modding\Tools\

Moving Steam and Installed Games

Some users may already have the Steam application and their games installed to "C:\Program Files\", "C:\Program Files (x86)\", or another location. Not to worry, Steam makes it easy to move your installation locations. Follow their instructions here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

Game Installation

Games are installed using the Steam application, and this can be done on one of two ways:

• Users who purchased a physical copy of the game from a retailer should already have the game installed from the Steam installation above.
• Use Steam to download and install:
  1. Open the Steam application.
  2. Users who need to purchase a game can use the search bar to search for and purchase it from the app.
  3. Users who have already purchased a copy of the game, hover over "Library" at the top and click "Games".
  4. Users will now see a list of their purchased games. Games in grey are not installed. Click on the game needing to be installed.
  5. On the game's page (right pane) click the "Install" button.
  6. Install the game to the default location which should be: C:\Modding\Steam\steamapps\common\GameName\..
  7. (see second video link above).

Initial Launch

Once the game is installed, it needs to be loaded once to register it with the system and create necessary files, like INIs. To do this:

1. Click the "Play" button on the games page in Steam.
2. Load the game to the game menu.
3. Exit the game.

This completes the initial game setup.

Game Backup

Though not necessary with the use of Mod Organizer, some users may wish to create a backup of their vanilla game before modding begins. If so, now would be the time to complete this task. For this, STEP recommends using 7-Zip to archive the following directories:

• (Replace 'GameName' with the name of the game folder being archived.)
• ..\Steam\SteamApps\common\GameName
• %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Games\GameName
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\GameName (ie. C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\GameName )

Any time a user wishes to return to the vanilla state of those game folders, the archives may simply be extracted to the same or analogous paths as above.