::Features::

This mod edits Shadowmere's appearance by darkening his textures, improving his attributes and adding a few shadow themed abilities true to his name and the in-game cut scene that introduces him.


This mod DOES a few things:

• It edits Shadowmere's textures and meshes.
• It sets Shadowmere to essential status so that he won't die.
• It gives Shadowmere his own stand-alone horse saddle which can also be crafted at tanning racks.
• It allows Shadowmere's level to scale with the player - Shadowmere will now have more health at higher levels unlike the vanilla Shadowmere.
• It ensures that Shadowmere will not break the player's stealth when sneaking and sets him to not "report" any crimes that your character commits.
• It sets Shadowmere to only be aggressive in fights against weaker enemies and grants him a disease cloak spell that activates during combat and damages enemies within range.
• It grants Shadowmere complete immunity to fall damage.
• It gives Shadowmere a 100% poison and disease resistance.
• It grants Shadowmere the ability to water walk and a few spells to fight enemies.
• It adds a few of the stealth perks for good measure and the quiet casting perk for his abilities and spells.
• It grants him a few bonus stats for better survivability like extra armor, health, health regen, damage reflection and spell absorption.
• It increases Shadowmere's speed by 50% and gives him some extra stamina to sprint for longer periods of time. Stamina regen was also increased to reduce the downtime between sprints.
• Shadowmere enters the "Shadowstalker" state whenever the weather is cloudy or overcast. The Shadowstalker state will be indicated by a subtle shadowy aura that eminates from him. In this state Shadowmere will gain a 12.5% speed bonus (a net 62.5% bonus speed) and some extra stamina to help "increase" Shadowmere's speed further via sprinting. Tip: Players can strategically use the Storm Call shout to trigger rainfall which would in turn transform Shadowmere into the Shadowstalker. Shadowstalker will also boost his skills at melee combat.
• Shadowmere enters the "Nightstalker" state between 9 pm and 5 am. In this state Shadowmere will be shrouded in shadows and will release a more potent aura. The Nightstalker will gain a 25% bonus speed (a net 75% bonus speed) as well as some extra magicka to cast his spells. Nightstalker also increases the effectiveness of Shadowmere's spells.
  

This mod DOES NOT:

• Edit the horse race or use its own custom race.
• Give him overpowered stats to instantly kill his enemies.
• Use any scripts.
  

All Skyrim Legendary Edition meshes that were used in the optional files were cleaned with SSE NIF Optimizer and a few of the normal maps were re-baked and dithered by myself.







::Requirements::

• Skyrim - Latest Version
• Dawnguard
• Hearthfire
• Dragonborn
  

::Installation::

Install the mod virtually with your preferred mod manager or copy and paste the contents of the zip files into the Data directory. Please note that you can only use any ONE of the two main files, any ONE of the saddle mesh replacers and any ONE of the Shadowmere mesh replacers. The "Default" version provides all of the aforementioned features, while the "Subtle Aura" version simply adds a shadowy aura. Mundane version strips away all of the bonus spells and special effects but preserves all of the bonus attributes. Finally, "Vanilla" goes beyond "Mundane" and strips away all of the passive buffs like the immunity to fall damage and increased movement speed, so that version basically functions as a texture and mesh replacer.

For midplaythrough installs of this mod, the changes to Shadowmere should immediately take hold even if you already obtained Shadowmere before. If for whatever reason the saddle didn't update then don't panic - press the tilde key(~), select Shadowmere with the mouse cursor, type "resetinventory" (without the quotation marks) and press ENTER to fix it. If that console command doesn't work then go to an interior cell like a house (any cell that the horse isn't sharing with you should do), press the tilde key (~) and type in "pcb" (just pcb without the quotation marks) and press ENTER - after doing this Shadowmere will finally have his modded saddle equipped. Instead of using console commands to "force" Shadowmere to equip the new saddle, you can just continue your adventures in Skyrim or fast travel across the map a couple times, doing this will force the game's engine to "update" Shadowmere's saddle for you automatically.



::Updating::

You can update the mod by reinstalling it with the updated version through your mod manager or by manually deleting the mod and installing it again with the updated version. The changes should take hold immediately after applying the update. Follow the tips outlined in the "Installation" section above if Shadowmere's appearance doesn't update immediately.



::Uninstallation::

Uninstall the mod manually from the Data folder or virtually with your mod manager. The mod doesn't have any scripts or persistent objects, so it is 100% safe to remove at any time.





::Mod Compatibility::

This mod will be incompatible with any other mod that tries to edit Shadowmere. How can I tell if there is a mod conflict with Shadowmere? Any mod that indicates from the mod description that it will change Shadowmere's appearance, speed, level, factions, spells or perks will be incompatible. Unfortunately, some mods don't mention clearly that they edit Shadowmere, so if you suspect a conflict you can use SSEEdit to load your current load order to immediately find any conflicts with Shadowmere (Form ID: 0009CCD7). You can resolve conflicts by loading Better Shadowmere after any conflicting mod, so Better Shadowmere's changes will be visible in-game. Use the following basic load order as a guide to resolve such conflicts:



In addition to playing around with the load order to fix conflicts, certain mods (like those which add new perks, factions or spells to Shadowmere) can be made even more compatible via the use of a Merged Patch, a Bashed Patch and/or a Smashed Patch. What will happen if I just load the conflicting mod before Better Shadowmere? All of the new perks, factions or spells added by the conflicting mod won't be carried forward (or won't be given to Shadowmere in-game). See the next section below for more details on those three patches and how they can help transfer those bonuses over to Shadowmere (if you really want Shadowmere to have them).

If you found any conflicting mods, then please send me a message, so I can list the conflicting mod by name within this compatibility section for the sake of other users:



::Compatible Mods::

• Convenient Horses
• Any mod that doesn't directly edit Shadowmere
  

::Incompatible Mods::

• Immersive Horses - Patch Available
• Realistic Horse Breeds
• Swift Steeds Shadowmere
• Slof's Unique Frost and Shadowmere SSE
• Any mod that directly edits Shadowmere
  

::Recommended Mods::

Please note that the following mods aren't actually required for this mod to work:

• Mod Organizer 2 will give you better flexibility when installing this mod and its optional files. Other than being able to virtually install mods (installing them safely outside of the Data folder thus keeping the Data folder clean), it gives you the ability to choose which assets from one mod will overwrite the assets of another mod - a feature which will make customizing Shadowmere with this mod's optional files a lot easier.
  

• A Merged Patch created with SSEEdit is recommended to increase compatibility with mods that adds certain attributes to Shadowmere like perks or keywords. You can learn how to create a merged patch here. Hint: A merged patch can preserve perks, keywords, factions and more that would otherwise be "lost" to mod conflicts, fixing these can lead to better consistency in-game, fix minor bugs and even crashes with certain scripted mods.
  

• A Bashed Patch created with Wrye Bash could improve the likelihood of items, that were added to Shadowmere by other mods, becoming available even if Better Shadowmere.esp overwrites the conflicting mod, provided that the mod author added them to the appropriate leveled lists. You can learn how to create a bashed patch here, while it may not be necessary for this mod it can be handy to create one for your load order for better stability with your weapon and armor mods. Hint: A lot of the crashes that players tend to experience when bartering with merchants, opening NPC inventories and containers, or even just exploring Skyrim (during the spawning of certain NPCs in dungeons or random encounters) can be fixed with a Bashed Patch.
  

• A Smashed Patch created with Mator Smash can also be used, it can eliminate the need of creating both a Bashed Patch and a Merged Patch and in many ways is more effective than either of those patches. You can learn how to create one here.
  

::Permissions::

Please do not upload my mod to other websites. Anyone can make a translation for this mod and my other mods without seeking my permission. The only thing that I ask is that you at least upload the translation to the Nexus. For those out there who own a website, then it's perfectly fine if you host the translation on other websites, but all I ask is that you please maintain a separate mod page for the translation here on the Nexus in addition to that copy on your website.