It should be noted that the set bonuses artificially increase the experience required to level the related skills, slowing progression. For example, if your character has a base level 5 in Acrobatics, it would take 5 jumps to advance a level. With the set bonuses, you would have a total level of 13 in Acrobatics (5 base + 8 from the bonus), which requires around 22 jumps to advance, taking as much as 4 times the effort to gain the same base level. This isn't a bug, it's just how the game handles "Fortify Skill" as an ability instead of an effect, much in the same way the Skeleton Key can drastically slow the progression of the Security skill. More info on the wiki.
Additionally, one can avoid this loss in experience by removing the set bonuses right before advancing a skill. Taking the previous example of level 13 in Acrobatics, after 20 jumps your experience bar will be almost full. By removing the set bonuses, your Acrobatics will return to its base level 5, but you'll retain the experience gained, which means your next jump will immediately advance you to level 6, and the surplus experience will be enough to fill your experience bar two more times, so your next two jumps will advance you to level 8 (Which is what would have have happened anyway if you jumped 20 times from level 5). However, if you do advance from 13 to 14 with the set bonuses active, the experience gained is effectively "lost" as explained in my first example, since your base level will now be 6 (14 - 8) without any surplus experience remaining.
I honestly love the idea behind this mod but this finicky interaction makes it unappealing to me as it encourages me to constantly keep track of my skill progressions so as to not lose experience needlessly.
If I'm understanding this correctly, then simply adding the bonuses through a non-playable enchanted item should be a work-around. It should be very easy to adapt the existing script as well.
I guess its time to dust off my Oblivion scripting hat. It only has about ten years worth of dust on it...
Yeah, it will be lost. Different armour will break a set, but clothing and no armour won’t, so you can wear boots, cuirass, gauntlets, and a hood, but not boots, cuirass, gauntlets, and a different helmet.
Unfortunately, I like using bits of the Local Guards armors, but that mod mostly just adds chest pieces and headgear. Since they're all in the same directory this mod treats them as a set. Which means I can never get a set bonus from those armors (just two parts), and wearing any piece of them prevents me from getting any bonuses from actuals sets.
If you're open to suggestions, I think an alternate version that maybe required 4 pieces but didn't care about the final piece at all (so could be from another set) would be cool.
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Additionally, one can avoid this loss in experience by removing the set bonuses right before advancing a skill. Taking the previous example of level 13 in Acrobatics, after 20 jumps your experience bar will be almost full. By removing the set bonuses, your Acrobatics will return to its base level 5, but you'll retain the experience gained, which means your next jump will immediately advance you to level 6, and the surplus experience will be enough to fill your experience bar two more times, so your next two jumps will advance you to level 8 (Which is what would have have happened anyway if you jumped 20 times from level 5). However, if you do advance from 13 to 14 with the set bonuses active, the experience gained is effectively "lost" as explained in my first example, since your base level will now be 6 (14 - 8) without any surplus experience remaining.
I honestly love the idea behind this mod but this finicky interaction makes it unappealing to me as it encourages me to constantly keep track of my skill progressions so as to not lose experience needlessly.
I guess its time to dust off my Oblivion scripting hat. It only has about ten years worth of dust on it...
Just to clarify, if I equip three pieces of steel armour and then equip say, an ebony helmet, will the set bonus then be lost?
If you're open to suggestions, I think an alternate version that maybe required 4 pieces but didn't care about the final piece at all (so could be from another set) would be cool.