Oh man...just my luck. I finally find a player house castle mod that ACTUALLY has the size of a castle, and its a mod from 2012, reportedly full of bugs too. That sucks.
I remember this mod. I tried using it back in the day, and boy it was buggy even then. I pray that Holth may rest in peace, since despite how buggy this is/was, it was an ambitious project and one of the best early player home mods.
As a heads up to anyone using this, this mod WILL break the college of winterhold's main quest, mainly 'Hitting the Books', turn this mod OFF before you talk to Savos Aren after doing Saarthal
I have known about this file for a quite some time, and always had it in mind to give it a try, so, here in 2019, I finally loaded it up. I had it in mind to write a long, detailed synopsis of it, but, I dont think so now. Ill try to keep it short.(ish)
The most important thing to know about this file is, you do not want it installed in a regular save or game you care about. That is because of the way it was set up. It was not setup using the CK in the 'standard way'. This is truly a first-gen effort and it shows. The problem is, it is using the exact same form id's as the base game, but has modified them for its own ends. If you know what that means, you'll never load this into a save that matters. Even if you update it against USLEEP, which should be done, but, is ultimately, not worth doing. It will overwrite too many base game functions and locations, even if updated.
What I did. -Converted to SSE -Updated it against USSEP. -Cleaned the ITMs -Took a look at it in CK, mostly its navmeshing. (Needs a going over)
Walked through it. It has scope and detail, and some clever and creative use of vanilla assets I dont think Ive seen before. The layout, is not that great in that its cells are quite linear in a few spots. You have to travel to one area to get to another area etc. There is no one central hall or area, you can access every major cell. The exterior, was a mess, trees and rocks poking through everywhere. At least in the updated test esp of mine. Could be a result of cleaning the ITMs. which often causes issues with files set up the way this one is.
One thing that bothered me was the odd scaling and size of the living quarters. The beds are normal sized, but the doors and rooms look like they were built for Giants. Another was the fact the castle has various quest items scatted about, instead of generic items.
In any event, it is quite the place regardless, and if you want to explore it, which I recommend, use a save you dont care about or plan to delete. But dont plan on actually using this in a active play-through. This is not the only mod from that era structured this way, there are others and they all have the same underlying problem.
Rebuilding this in the CK to current standards, and resolving the form ID issues and its other bugs, would keep one busy for a fair while.
Lastly, I would note that despite its scope, It imposed no performance issues at all. This is likely due to not using any high demand custom assets, and despite the detail, there is not a lot of clutter in the castle. It manages to look 'full', while keeping clutter and overhead at a minimum. Of course the fact we now have SSE and I have a somewhat better GPU than w/e I had in 2012 probably doesn't hurt either.
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Castle Grey Updated at Skyrim Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)
That sucks.
The most important thing to know about this file is, you do not want it installed in a regular save or game you care about. That is because of the way it was set up. It was not setup using the CK in the 'standard way'. This is truly a first-gen effort and it shows. The problem is, it is using the exact same form id's as the base game, but has modified them for its own ends. If you know what that means, you'll never load this into a save that matters. Even if you update it against USLEEP, which should be done, but, is ultimately, not worth doing. It will overwrite too many base game functions and locations, even if updated.
What I did.
-Converted to SSE
-Updated it against USSEP.
-Cleaned the ITMs
-Took a look at it in CK, mostly its navmeshing. (Needs a going over)
Walked through it. It has scope and detail, and some clever and creative use of vanilla assets I dont think Ive seen before. The layout, is not that great in that its cells are quite linear in a few spots. You have to travel to one area to get to another area etc. There is no one central hall or area, you can access every major cell. The exterior, was a mess, trees and rocks poking through everywhere. At least in the updated test esp of mine. Could be a result of cleaning the ITMs. which often causes issues with files set up the way this one is.
One thing that bothered me was the odd scaling and size of the living quarters. The beds are normal sized, but the doors and rooms look like they were built for Giants.
Another was the fact the castle has various quest items scatted about, instead of generic items.
In any event, it is quite the place regardless, and if you want to explore it, which I recommend, use a save you dont care about or plan to delete. But dont plan on actually using this in a active play-through. This is not the only mod from that era structured this way, there are others and they all have the same underlying problem.
Rebuilding this in the CK to current standards, and resolving the form ID issues and its other bugs, would keep one busy for a fair while.
Lastly, I would note that despite its scope, It imposed no performance issues at all. This is likely due to not using any high demand custom assets, and despite the detail, there is not a lot of clutter in the castle. It manages to look 'full', while keeping clutter and overhead at a minimum. Of course the fact we now have SSE and I have a somewhat better GPU than w/e I had in 2012 probably doesn't hurt either.