Skyrim Special Edition

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Brin_aSair

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BrinaSair

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About this mod

Undiscovered map markers (excluding those of cities) are indistinct or invisible.

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Permissions and credits
Changelogs
Ever wondered how your character knows that the undiscovered place somewhere ahead - still unseen - is a cave, a shack, or a shipwreck? While knowing the rough location of the major cities makes some sense, for other places it seems the dragonborn has a strange prescience. This mod aims to solve this issue.

All undiscovered location map markers - excluding the cities - are either replaced with an indistinct symbol (choose one of two options) or are rendered invisible. As additional options, I use the same method (making the map marker transparent) to remove enemy icons from the compass and the player location marker from the map. Finally, I have built-in compatibility with several popular UI mods.


Compatibility

Due to editing hudmenu.gfx and map.swf, it will not be compatible with other mods that alter the same. These files contain the icons used by the HUD, the compass, and the map, but not the map itself or map marker locations.

I have included in the fomod compatibility files for several mods that add color to map markers: Color Quest and Capital Map Markers, Colour Map Markers and Pastel Map Markers, and also - from Skyrim LE - Limo's Map Markers and Not Another Color Map Icon Mod [NACMIM]. For Pastel Map Markers, to keep with its theme, I have created pastel versions of the two options of indistinct undiscovered map markers.

I have also included compatibility files for SkyUI and SkyHUD (again for vanilla and for all four color options listed above). There is an optional file for LIHUD2, but it is limited to the vanilla colors.


Versions

The primary version is for SSE v1.5.3+, but I retain the last working version for SSE v1.4.2 as an optional file. Currently there are only three difference between them:  the older version still supports Minimalistic HUD and does not support SkyUI SSE, while the newer version is the opposite. Both versions support SkyHUD and the following map marker coloration mods: Colour Map Markers, Limo Map Markers, NACMIM, and Pastel Map Markers, but the newer version also supports Color Quest and Capital Map Markers.


Recommendations / Credits

I encourage the use of SkyUI and SkyHUD and also a colorizing map marker mod such as Color Quest and Capital Map Markers, Colour Map Markers, Pastel Map Markers, or Simple Color Map Markers, as I patched files from their mods to make the versions of this mod that are compatible with their mods. Minimalistic HUD is also enjoyable from time to time. Unfortunately, neither Limo's Map Markers nor NACMIM have been ported to SSE, but I also give well deserved credit to their creators - Limosk and SHiva64 - for their pioneering work in colorizing the icons used in maps and compasses. Both Pastel Map Markers and EzEs Map Markers were based upon their works.

Finally, while it is not available for Skyrim SE, I was initially inspired by the mod Immersive Undiscovered Locations, although I expanded what is not pre-discovered (no longer including the Jarl's homes, the College of Winterhold, etc), created my own variant indistinct map marker icons, and included options for invisible undiscovered map markers and for invisible enemy markers.


A Suggestion with a Caution Statement

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TyburnKetch has pointed out that the mod 'No Current Location on Map' removes the sound from mousing over map icons on the map. It also removes the text stating the player's current location (when mousing over that icon - even if it is invisible). Although NCLoM is a mod for classic Skyrim, it works by altering only a single game setting: sCurrentLocation, by replacing the sound files with silenced ones, and by removing the map icon that shows the player's location from the SkyUI mapmarkerart.swf file. So it should be safe to use in a SSE even without conversion.

But I offer a three cautions to use using NCLoM:

First, the Game Setting it alters ( sCurrentLocation ) - I do not know if this *only* alters the player's map location, or if it also alters the game engine's understanding of where the player is located for the purpose of location keywords. If the latter, then any mods that rely on location keywords will be become lost - either defaulting to their 'unknown location' setting for all locations or (if they lack a setting for 'unknown location') not working at all. If anyone can test this and advise me on whether keywords from the player's location still work with this mod I would appreciate it.

Second, NCLoM only alters the SkyUI version of map file - as it existed in 2015. So it will not remove the player's location from the map if you are not using SkyUI, and if you are using SkyUI then it will switch you to using the 2015 version of its map file. Therefore I strongly suggest - if you use NCLoM - that you hide or not install its interface folder, instead only using its sound folder and its esp, and use UMU for removing the player's location from the map.

Third, the sounds apply to mouse-over locations regardless of whether they have been discovered or not. So you cannot have the normal sounds for discovered locations and no sounds for undiscovered locations: you either have sounds for all or lose sounds for all. Similarly, if you mouse-over a location on the map, then even if you have the sounds silenced and the icon made invisible, the floating text showing its name will still appear. Again, this is an either / or situation (which is why UMU did not remove it) - you can either have the location name for both discovered and undiscovered locations, or you remove all names for all locations, even if discovered.

So the mod makes three changes - each of which can be installed separately if wished, and each of which has its own potential issue.