With L3stat's kind permission, I'm happy to announce QRVAE, the second in the "Qwinn's Refined" series of mods (the first is "Qwinn's Refined Fallout New Vegas Redesigned 3").  The "Qwinn's Refined" series takes what I consider to be mostly excellent mods which otherwise have issues or bugs that rendered them IMO too problematic to install, and attempts to refine and improve them as I, and hopefully many others, see fit.

This mod does not contain any assets - it only replaces the main VAE plugin and provides patches that should only be used with that replacer plugin.  The main VAE mod V.2 by L3stat MUST BE INSTALLED FIRST, then install this mod and allow it to overwrite.

Load order between the main VAE plugin and the mods being patched is not important.  Feel free to place the "VisualAnimatedEnchants.esp" plugin as high in your load order as you wish.




Here is the list of issues that this mod attempts to improve over base VAE:

1) The replacer VAE plugin included in this mod is an ESPFE (ESL flagged), meaning it will no longer take up one of your 255 plugin slots in your plugin order.  So are all of the provided patches.  You may replace the plugin from base VAE with this replacer ESPFE plugin with no negative effects on your save game (which is a bit surprising, actually).  (EDIT!  Damn, I knew this was too good to be true.  Please see the top sticky for an exception, though I believe most people will still be fine.)

2) The description page of base VAE says that the mechanics of how enchantments work are unchanged by the mod, but this is not true.  Enchantment descriptions were changed (sometimes inaccurately), enchantment costs and values were changed (sometimes drastically, particularly with Dawnbreaker), some vanilla enchantment effects were completely replaced by the visual effect (example:  Dawnguard Rune Axe), some artifacts had effects added (example:  Soul Trap added to Mehrune's Razor), and a host of other wild edits that have nothing to do with the visual effects that the mod advertises.  With QRVAE, the description is made accurate.  My replacer plugin preserves all enchantment mechanics and all records are consistent with vanilla/USSEP values.  All edits not strictly related to visual enchantment animations have been removed, with the single exception that the urn added to the Dragonsreach enchanter's room containing the custom sword with the custom poison enchantment will remain available.  If you don't care for the added enchantment (I have not evaluated whether the effect is balanced), simply ignore the urn.

3) To reduce conflicts, unnecessary and non functional modifications to records have been cleaned out. My version does not alter any vanilla weapon (WEAP) records at all, meaning no patch for WACCF or similar mods is necessary.

4) Fix to bug in Harkkon's sword visual effect which made the blade skin glow green instead of the original and intended blood red.

5) Optional alternate visual effect for Dawnbreaker which I found in the assets while working on the plugin, making it a literal orange flaming sword. I personally think this alternate effect is extremely cool, particularly in third person, and worth making available.

6) The name of the urn added to the enchanting room in Dragonsreach has been fixed from "'s Urn of Overflowing Secret" to "Urn of Overflowing Secrets".  The name of the sword in the urn has been fixed from "PSN" to "Sword of Overflowing Poison". The description of that sword's enchantment has been fixed from " Target get <mag> poison damage to health for <dur> seconds." to "Target takes <mag> poison damage for <dur> seconds."

7) Patches for CACO, AOS, ISC, ZIA and Summermyst are available.  There's also a 3 way QRVAE-CACO-AOS patch if you're using all 3 which replaces the previously mentioned CACO and AOS patches.  All of these patches should only be used with the QRVAE replacer plugin, not the original VAE plugin.  QRVAE has a full QUASIPC style installer with automatic patch installation.



Some notes on the ZIA patch, because some visuals with this patch are unlike those found with either VAE or ZIA by themselves:

1)  In vanilla, the Mace of Molag Bal has a green skin visual effect.  In ZIA, the effect becomes purple.  In VAE, the mace skin effect remains green with an added green swirling effect.  In my ZIA patch, the mace is purple with a purple swirling effect (specifically, the purple Banish Daedra visual effect).  That effect was the one I found in VAE most consistent with the changed ZIA coloration.

2)  In vanilla, the Nightingale Blade's effects are Absorb Health and Absorb Stamina with a red skin effect, and VAE adds red flames consistent with the Absorb Health enchantment coloration.  ZIA, however, changes the effects to Shock and Frost damage and the skin effect to blue.  As such, my VAE-ZIA patch uses ZIA's blue skin effect suggestive of the new Frost effect and adds a previously unused animated electrical effect that I found in the VAE assets consistent with the new Shock damage effect.

3)  In vanilla, Keening has Absorb Health, Absorb Stamina and Absorb Magicka, and is colored red consistent with Absorb Health.  VAE adds the red swirling effect that goes with Absorb Health enchantments consistent with that.  ZIA, however, changes the skin coloration to blue consistent with the Absorb Magicka effect, and so to maintain consistency I have changed the swirling effect to the coloration that VAE adds with the Absorb Magicka enchantment.






My Fallout New Vegas Mods:

QRNVR3 - Qwinn's Refined New Vegas Redesigned 3

My Skyrim Special Edition mods:

QUASIPC - Qwinn's Unified Automated Self Installing Patch Compendium
QRVAE - Qwinn's Refined Visual Animated Enchants
Improved Redbelly Mine Mist Fix  (Replaced patches for ELE-USSEP and Luminosity-USSEP)
QUARK - Qwinn's Ultimate Amulet Restoration Kit
QUSTR - Qwinn's Universal Skin Texture Replacer
Scoped Bows Compatibility Kit
IDRS - Improved Disabled Race Scaling
Critters Ain't Snitches - Animal and Monster Crime Reporting Fix
Interesting NPCs Amalee Customizer (by frogf, port only)
Interesting NPCs Zora Customizer (by frogf, port only)
TMBE Enhanced Body for SSE (by Robton, port only)
TMB Vanilla Armors and Clothes (by Robton, port only)

My Dragon Age Origins mods:

Qwinn's Ultimate Dragon Age Origins Fixpack
Tougher Merchants