True Skyrim Immersion Killer, Overmodding

In the back of my mind, I knew constantly blinging out my Skyrim for ultimate immersion was the very thing that was destroying it.  Join me for a humorous look on why constant modding is dangerous for your immersion health. I've contracted a serious case of immersion dysfunction no alchemist in Skyrim can heal.

Will my immersion will go to Sovngard when it dies?

SkyrimVR Modding Discipline and Hygiene

 In my early days, I would carelessly and indiscriminately add large batches of mods fobbed off someone's list without knowing exactly what they did and what the implications were going forward.  One thing I didn't realize is that SkyrimVR is an LTR which means any modding sins will pop up sooner or later and give you days of debugging headaches or at worst force you to start a new playthrough.

For each mod I add, I try to figure out the impact if any on the following problem areas:

• Performance
• Save file bloat including scripts, object counts
• Compatibility/Future Compatibility
• Creation Engine Limits

• Reference Handle Cap (see reddit post), this is the one that makes me the most paranoid
• Mod 255 Plugin limit
• Animation Limit 

Unless they are simple no-plugin texture mods which can be added or removed anytime, I try really hard to stick to the following practices to ward off future problems.  Also I want to keep it relatively simple, I don't want to futz around with merging mods or use wyre bash.  More time you spend piddling around modding, the less game time you give yourself.

Practice #1 Add only a few new mods per play session

Mod greed is a natural thing. Just a little mod restraint can prevent debugging headaches. Previously I thought it would be a "nice" surprise to organically find the mod change sometime later.  Instead I ended up with a few nasty surprises that got baked too far into my saves.   You want to find and isolate problems early as possible.

Now I never install a mod unless I am going to immediately check it out. I.e. I don't install a new follower/NPC mod unless I find them and vet them on that session.  I also have a probation period for the more complex overhaul mods and I will revert hours of play if needed.

Practice #2 Compare Performance Against Last Known Baseline and non Modded Baselines

In VR, a gamer's tolerance can vary but I can get sick or worse lose immersion around 60fps.  First is capturing your baseline without mods and then understanding where the bottlenecks can occur and what your fallback solutions are. For me, I know it's the CPU not GPU that is problematic. (For GPU, I can always take out 4K/8K textures and reduce SS. But still I keep an eye out for GPU/VRAM usage always wanting to be around 80% or less)

I have an i9-9900K that is barely being used so it's not lack of processing power but creaky creation engine limitations when CPU frames take too long. The CPU frame needs to take less than 11ms(for 90fps) and on a completely clean vanilla game, my CPU frames take ~4ms.  Let's just say mod greed on my part took it to ~14ms but I'm back to 6-7ms.

The first thing I do after installing mods is to check current fps and make sure I leave headroom gpu, vram/cpu still left for future.  Using fpsviewer, I will do a performance test by traveling to known performance problem areas of Riften, Whiterun, and open cities like Falkreath.  

One of the tricky problems with modding Skyrim is that it's not always one specific sandbag. Sometimes there is death by a thousand paper cuts and also unexpected interactions between unrelated mods.

For instance, this isn't 100% confirmed but I've read on reddit that Footprints and Wet and Cold can be problematic when you have a large number of extra NPCs which very likely added to my cpu frame slowdown.  My new load order still includes all the NPC mods but doesn't include Footprints/Wet and Cold and I don't have performance problems so I will be leaving them out for the future.  I love having more NPCs than footprints.

Practice #3 Monitor Save File, Check Unreferenced Scripts and Objects, Counts

At the end of a playthrough, I check the save file size compared to the previous mod load order, then open up the file in fallrim tools and check

1. Existence of unreferenced scripts and objects. If they exist, I will delete them and the rerun the game on the clean save. Sometimes I'm lazy and will do this the first thing the next play session.
• Birds of Skyrim really left a lot of junk scripts around so I uninstalled. 
2. Script/object counts compared to previous
• Placeable Statics added an ungodly number of scripts almost for every container. But I was really OCD about removing clutter around my Hearthfire homes and the mod outlined steps for uninstalling...

Practice #4 Research Mod Deinstallability/Compatibility/Future Compatibility

First is knowing how permanent a mod choice is going to be and whether or not a mod can be truly deinstalled. Even with mod cleaning with fallrim tools, some mods cannot be successfully purged. When there is no mention of deinstalling on the mod page,  it probably is not a clean removal.  I thought Sounds of Skyrim was going to be something easily taken out but I get random CTDs without it even with fallrim cleaning. If a mod is going to be in your loadlist forever, you tend to be pickier.

Most mods that have been around have a fleshed out compatibility section and I try do a thorough cross check and look at the bug list. But I am most careful with overhaul mods which can crimp your future modding options.   

Sometimes you will be only be able to do 1 of something. I tried 3 different College of Winterhold overhauls and chose the Magical College of Winterhold b/c it made it you know, more magical. But you can't know the future, last year Obscure's College of Winterhold got released.  I didn't like some of Obscure's changes(some of the shiny lamps were not lore friendly and stuck out like a sore thumb) so I didn't have to take action.

Practice #5 Play Large Quest Mods on a Separate Vortex Profile and Save. 

I fork off a separate profile in Vortex and play in separate saves for large quest mods like Beyond Skyrim: Bruma, Vigilant, Carved Brink, Project AHO.  They have really fantastic armors that would have been great to have in my regular play but I am extremely paranoid about such mods adding a great number of object records which in the long term can increase instability.  It's not any one of these mods but rather having dozens of them that is the problem. This reddit discussion really opened my eyes and I used the xedit script to count references.

The only two big quest mods I do keep in my main load list are

• Legacy of the Dragonborn (I will not be starting over for 5.0) - Not only because LotD gives your  hoarding purpose but I loved having Dev Aveza docked in Solitude
• Clockwork - the house is too amazing and I worked to hard to get it...

Still here, treat yourself to my mod video.

SkyrimVR Player Home Mods

The most interesting Skyrim real estate is not from the vanilla game but from the endless creativity of talented modders. Many of these mods are worth exploring as places in their own right if not for inhabiting and is often vastly superior to vanilla.

Portable  Homes 

Modding allows for a different paradigm of callable homes encapsulated in an item in your inventory a la "I Dream of Jeannie".  Some would consider this cheating but consider it essential for a true hoarder-never leave any dragon bones behind. Portable homes can be construed as lore friendly for a mage character. 

• Staff of Shalidor(++)-  upside down fun, this innovative home on the ball of a staff has a  well-lighted yet cosy interior making it a pleasant escape after the trauma of melee combat in a dark dungeon.  This mod really helped ease the dreariness of Alfthand during the long slog to Blackreach.  Also you can hear the rain and weather from your last location giving you a lovely immersive connection the the outside. My husband was quite catty- "What- your staff just hangs out rigid while you disappear". Hrrmmf.  It enters a magical plane if you must know.
• HavenBag - Dwemer conversion (+++)- Call at your whim a deluxe spacious bachelor pad with ample weapons racks, hot tub, all the usual amenities for smithing and enchanting, oven for baking replete with a fully loaded pantry.  Dwemer architecture does make it feel more like a museum and lacks the coziness of the Staff of Shalidor but the spaciousness is calming after combat in dreary dungeons and caves. I am able to bring Meeko here and hence this is my main portable home. (The original Haven Bag is an interior of a leather bag but I chose the Dwemer version so home does not feel too crammed and cluttered.)
• Campfire Cabin - craft and plunk down a cabin anywhere.  Allows you to also craft a portable enchanting station so I can do most of my stuff outside.  (Requires Campfire another fine mod.)

Castles, Megahomes, Villages

• Tel Nalta II (+++)  my all time favorite SSE mod which lets you build a full fledged Tel Vanni mushroom village. The mod comes with an optional cheat chest with materials needed to build out the village. I didn't know this and it was great fun running around Skyrim gathering materials for the first few pods. This merits a post all it's own. TBD  

• Antennaria - enough magical feels to satisfy any fantasy nerd. Artistically this is probably the loveliest bedroom in all of Tamriel nestled in a ferny overgrown grotto.
• Aemer’s refuge  - tremendous castle with a double dragon fight to win the right to enter. Mod also places rune passage ways which can be activated from vanilla homes.
• Leveler’s Tower - it's a massive cheat castle but way too fun not to explore to behold sights not in vanilla- a massive basement farm worked by dwemer spiders, a fight arena where you can spawn battles, the list goes on.

Functional Useful Homes

Quiet smithy with a lake view

Ruska in Riften (+++)

Placed conveniently near Honeyside's back door. I use Ruska as my base to do my smithing outdoors overlooking Riften lake. Balimund is a nice guy and all but Khajit needs quiet space to create the best armor and weapons. Ruska is an Elianora house and as such has all her signature facilities of named storage.  I actually use Hearth Craft to make a portable enchanting station which I've hid(troll skull) next to the ore chest so I can do smithing and enchanting all outside. When I had knee surgery, I did all my smithing and enchanting sitting here enjoying the great outdoors.

Mammoth Manor near Lake Ilinalta (+++)

The two story manor is spacious enough for a gang of followers and the open two story living room layout allows you to keep ready tabs on everyone. There is an ample armory downstairs. 

Also this property comes with  a separate Nord sauna down the hill by the lake's edge. Be careful, it auto strips you and anyone else if you enter the sauna inside the cabin. You do have to prove your worth to own this abandoned piece of real estate.

Mammoth tusks thematically everywhere

Hermit's Stump A hidden retreat on the way to Ivarstead, it's worth visiting at least once. This is where I do my mushroom farming as this mod has more Hearthfire plantable spots than anywhere. Probably one could mix this with Cannabis Skyrim for that Humboldt feeling.

AirBNB - casual stays when near the area

• Telmos mushroom house on the way to Ivarstead, I love the look of the skyline near the waterfall with this house.

• Wind Path - remote refuge next to a waterfall. You can stroll up the mountain path to the troll cave for some rather decent loot. Don't try to wash your hands or play the lute yourself in VR as this goes to black screen.

• Viking Long House - across the docks in Windhelm when I am forced to quest in that overly Nord Nord land

• Leafrest in Riverwood

Hobbit Homes

• Island Hobbit Home - this is probably the most hobbity of the bunch. Warning If you don't have SKSE, you will get a weird green blank mesh in the alchemy room instead of the potting station.
• Hobbiton - exterior and the foundry are beautifully done and others rooms could do with a little more work. The layout is spacious with a lot of bookshelves making the open floor plan useful if you have an army of followers.

• Marnya - little ho hum exactly as the author intended and shares the world space with Hobbiton, I'd rather have Hobbiton than Marnya

Improvements to Vanilla Homes, Hearthfire Homes

Riften Honeyside is my home base and I keep it unmodded just to have a completely vanilla home to do clean saves. However most of the vanilla homes lack a loving home touch as Bethesda did the bare minimum.  It's almost as if the guy that does bandit camps also did the homes and just perfunctorily put few items on each surface and called it a day.

• Breezehome by Lupus - not too over the top
• Breezehome Porch- make use of the front unused space
• Lakeview Extended- builds a full fortified compound out of this Falkreath Hearthfire home.  Made by the same author as the excellent Tel Nalta.
• Lakeview Extended Basement
• Proudspire - I had to slay so many necromancers to get this ugly uncomfortable home.  Figures Bethesda would make the most expensive home in Skyrim the worst. This mod makes Proudspire at least a little more livable but Solitude is my least favorite city and I'd rather not have to overnight in Proudspire.

Rejected Homes

Skyrim modded real estate is vast and I've downloaded 30+ more home mods and removed them for one reason or another and will note them here at least to remind myself.

My Current Skyrim VR Mod List not including Homes

(Home mods are listed here)

Mods are what makes skyrim an endless wonder of replay-ability keeping this creaky 8 year old  growing and vibrant.  Amazingly, a community of devoted Skyrim enthusiasts are still adding to the world's largest library of game mods which change Skyrim in diverse and unimaginable ways. One of the true joys of playing skyrim is reshaping the game world to fit one's peculiarities and I've probably spent more time modding than actual game play. But with 18,000+ mods, it takes time investment to separate out what will really enhance your gameplay.  My preferred mods listed here are family friendly i.e. no MXR/LL kinky stuff, this is not to say there is anything wrong with that per say but I am striving for a naturally immersive 4k realm.

Being Attacked Boarding the Dev Aveza (Legacy of the Dragonborn)

For gamers who are just starting out, I would recommend adding just 2-3 mods for each play so they can get a feel for what the mod actually does.  From a practical point of view, you want to debug and isolate incompatibilities and performance issues with small sets of changes. (True story: When I first started as a clueless noob, I mass installed about 40 mods that I got off lists from the internet. Weirdly the bandit women kept showing up naked like mannequins without nipples whenever I would loot their armor. I didn't know if this was the original game or a mod but it was definitely a creepy immersion killer. I didn't know if I should install a lady skin mod like UNP to restore biologic correctness but I ended up slapping on the "Skyrim Modesty Mod" to allow the dead some dignity. It made more immersive sense that Tamriel's females- outlaw or not- would wear some form of underclothing in the chilly Nord climate. It turned out WICO was at fault and I had somehow missed the never nude selection.)

Even if you have a powerful machine, you will break your game many times over by continually adding mods as you are building layers of instability on the original sand dunes that is the Bethesda Creation Engine. If you have just a middling machine- well then you will be spending a lot of time teetering off the edge and rolling back. Before my 1080ti/i9-9900K upgrade, my 1070/i7-6820HK Alienware would routinely crash and burn and debugging and pruning my mod list was just the cost of running mods.

But more importantly restraint is recommended for the following, think of mods like Christmas presents- don't open them all at once! Despite appearances, there is not an infinite supply of quality mods and it will be quite a long time til TES VI.

I use about 200+ mods currently on a GTX 1080ti at 200% SS running at mostly 90 FPS. I try to point out the fps hogs when I can.  The mods listed here are everyday mods exluding homes(separate list) or DLC sized ones like Project AHO& Falskaar.   Anything I consider essential, I've marked with a rating of plusses with +++ being the most critical for me.

Essential Core

• Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch(+++) 
• SMIM Static Mesh Improvement Mod(+++) 

Utility/VR Mods

• Dragonborn Speaks Naturally(+++)- voice command is so much more immersive than scrolling through menus. I love the flexibility of pairing  custom console commands. I should do a separate post on this but I started using this during the Dawnguard DLC. It is however a bit humiliating when your husband is tittering when he hears "Transform me into a vampire lord"...
• Haptic Skyrim VR(+) - Haptic feedback for spellcasting, melee weapons and bow. I love the subtle vibration when pulling a bowstring
• showracemenu alternative(+++) - nicer than having to use console command, I use it to fork my builds from time to time to make versions friends can try.
• vrmirror - Not just for vanity, I went out onto town with just wearing my loin cloth and got sniggered at.  I
• Quality World Map(+++) - Take the blurriness out of the atrocious Bethesda map. IcePenguin I thank you!
• no stagger in VR

Mega-Mods

• Legacy of the Dragonborn- A expansion mod so complex it has it's own wiki. LotD establishes a museum in Solitude and you can even start your own explorer guild. LotD is chock full of new quests and custom characters but there is a certain satisfaction in filling the halls with the loot of your adventures. The airship Dev Aveza is included.

Custom Voiced Followers

• Inigo(+++) - who doesn't love Inigo and his sometimes serious sometimes playful furry blue face!  He's a bad ass archer, singer, poet, witty jokester with a complex tragic backstory.  I love roaming the lands with a fellow Khajiit where he efficiently takes care of business- perhaps he is too overpowered with his ebony bow. You'll be impressed in the classy way he shows Nazeem who's who in the Whiterun market.

• Lucien- This wimpy imperial intellectual and his hyper chatty hyper catty ways really grew on me. I love the way he sings behind me while we wander Skyrim.  Lucien shines because he has so much dialog with vanilla and custom followers. He whispered to me quite seriously, "I think Inigo has fleas."  But the way he will engage in conversation with you without you prompting his menu is fantastically immersive.
• Hoth - So much much more than a violent tank. (to be fleshed out later) However some of his obnoxious lines that are funny at first are too oft repeated. 
• Kaidan 2 - I installed Kaidan2 as he and Lucien have custom banter with each other. I find Akiviri stuff just not as lore friendly but after I bust him out of prison from the Thalmor,  I can't seem to kick him to the curb.  

NPCs

• WICO(+++)  - Windsong Immersive Character Overhaul- the most lore friendly overhaul out of the bunch to make NPCs look acceptable to 2015 standards. I preferred this over TCO.   You will be shocked how horrible vanilla humans look after you get used to WICO. Careful in your install, you can get naked ladies if you don't choose correctly!
• (Immersive) Amazing Follower Tweaks -Probably the first thing anybody does with AFT is to make Lydia dance. I use iAFT to keep it lore friendly paring down those party features.   Careful,  if you already have a standard follower you might want to dismiss them first. 
• Immersive Citizens AI Overhaul - it's hard for me to tell what is RDO vs AIO but it's nice change having the denizens gasp and say "Dragonborn, it's an honor" instead of racist Khajiit putdowns.
• Real Dialog Overhaul- RDO
• Modesty Mod- don't let those ladies go nude or show too much skin in the cold north. I don't know why I have this in my list except that when my Mom comes and visits, I'll going to put this on.
• My home is your home - doesn't work with Inigo but is useful to send your vanilla followers to specific homes if you have a large squad on call.
• Improved Meeko - makes Meeko less crazy aggro and Meeko will stop attacking enemies on sight.  I have command lines for everything but it's nicer to have it in one mod. Also I had a weird bug where Meeko was stuck in the bushes and this unstuck him.

Weapons - Armor - Gore

• Real Bows (+++)- archery is the most believable combat mechanics in VR and deserves better and more functional looking bows.  Forsworn bows with the double limb design are so beautiful, I've hung them up in almost every house I own.

• Ars Metallica - wouldn't smith without it.
• Immersive Armors
• LeanWolf's Better-Shaped Weapons
• Enhanced Blood - it's a bit too gory but I'm too lazy to make up my mind to remove it

Weather/Environment

• Cathedral Weathers(+++)- Currently using for a colder more diverse feel. 
• Climates of Tamriel(++) - Vivid Weathers was lovely but the snow and rain didn't feel believable and really killed your immersion.  CoT has better snow and rain but tends to be much brighter than other weather mods. After playing for a month of gloomy overcast weather, I prefer sunny glare of CoT. (I disabled the enb preset as it was chewing up too much fps. enb vr )
• Pure Waters (Pure Waters looks much more realistic except for waterfalls. I took out RealisticWaterTwo which looked terrible at distance)
• Ethereal Cosmos- gives night sky a more fantasy feel
• Ethereal Clouds
• Wet and Cold- frosty breath definitely gives immersion in cold weather. 

Textures/Models

Adding 4K textures gives you a Diderot effect and surrounding low resolution textures will start offending your immersion senses forcing you to update everything.

• Skyrim 2017 Textures(+++)  - Pfuscher provides a strong base.
• Book Covers Skyrim SE(++)
• RUSTIC EVERYTHING!!!
• Rustic Clothing (++) -  Not sure you would play without this. Otherwise the vanilla costumes can chafe your eyes.
• Rustic Noble Furniture 
• Rustic Windows
• Rustic Daedra, Rustic Death Hound, Rustic Spriggan, Rustic Frostbite, Rustic Cooking
• Rugnarok - I wasn't going to waste the RAM and deinstall but everytime I look down and say "Damn, that's one fine rug"...

Meeko chilling out at Mammoth Manor- a fine house for followers to not get in your way

• Peltapalooza -same, everything gamwich makes is generally of the highest quality except this one I am slightly on the fence about. It's better than vanilla to be sure but not as immersive.
• High Poly Project - be amazed at the bristles in your broom, cabbages gone savoy. This one chews performance like nothing else, especially rendering all the rope in Riften. If you have the raw machine power of a 2080ti, waste it on this and see what it could be if you ramped up the polygons on useless clutter. I took it off to give more headroom to other mods but it was fun to have it for a month.

Creatures

• BirdsAndFlocks (++)- Seeing flocks scatter in the sky- guaranteed immersion for the first 12 times.
• SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators - Adds puppies to Skyrim! Author really should stress this more. This mod overhauls animal behavior in a more realistic way, adds juveniles, other farm animals like pigs.

Flora

• Skyrim Flora Overhaul
• HQ Bark(++) - The best bark textures in VR gaming.  However combo of SFP and HQ bark messes up LODs.
• Immersive Fallen Trees - really does feel immersive to see giant trees fallen and making a bridge- I love running around Skyrim looking for them. 
• Realistic Aspen Trees - adds oranges and reds for a true autumnal feel
• HD Photorealistic Ivy(++) - so real looking. I didn't think this would make a big difference in immersion but ivy is hanging more places than you think.

Fun

• Campfire - camping in the wilds of Skyrim with your own dog has it's own unique charms. I don't go hardcore with any survival mods like Frostfall but just want to relax out in the woods.
• Cannabis Skyrim - Since I don't toke, I didn't think I wanted a lore unfriendly gag weed mod.  However finally I ran out of mods to try and gave it a go. My god the textures on the hemp plants are of such high quality and the comic value huge!  The shop Your Highness is a top class joint with so much attention to detail.  This mod also allows you to plant weeds all over Skyrim so you can finally embark on your Johnny Appleweed project.  Dynamic plant growth makes it fun.
• Fishing in Skyrim VR - Although the mechanics are a bit thin, it's still fun running around Skyrim to see what you can drag in with your net.   Be careful where you throw your net.  I got human remains along with empty wine bottles in the swamps of Morthal.  Also mod let's you use a Dwemer bomb in the water- useful for getting rid of slaughterfish that's preventing fast travel.  
• Become a Bard - in VR you don't get to see animations or actually play the instrument, but it's still fun air-playing at inns or setting the soundtrack when you want some other lore friendly music. I actually got kind of nervous first time I played at the Winking Skeever but the crowd warmed up.

Cities & Roads

• JKs Skyrim(++) - Vanilla cities are sparse- the more you play the more you will notice this lack of richness. JK's Skyrim fills out the cities without going over the top.  JKS adds pulley system to Riften to move goods between the lower and upper levels, ladder on the roofs for thieves.  (I uninstalled Dawn of Skyrim since I didn't like the non-immersive cartoony rats it added to Riften and I prefer JKS alone.)
• Kato's Whiterun with Trees(+++) - Making the trees much taller makes such a remarkable difference to make Whiterun into a believable old city. It's night and day.
• Kato's Falkreath(+++)-tastefully done
• Magical College of Winterhold- b/c vanilla is not so magical...
• Skyrim Better Roads and Bridges
• Immersive Roads SSE
• Beautiful Honey Signs

Audio

• Immersive Sounds
• Audio Overhaul
• No Bee Sounds+++ - I made the mistake of having a greenhouse in Hearthfire DLC and the buzz was obnoxiously loud. I was able to install the Skyrim version without trouble.

Other Immersion and Miscellaneous

• Less Dragons++ - When you sigh when you hear the shrieks from the sky and the dramatic combat music. Dragon encounters should be a rare event.  When you realize you have 50 dragon souls and not enough shouts to fill, it's time to turn that down.
• Realistic Boat Travel - the less fast travel you do, the more immersive the game becomes

Dawnguard DLC

• Grave Gargoyles SE
• Vampire Lord Retextured(Demonic)- sadly you can't see your bad ass vampire lord self, only when Lord Harkon transforms. 
• CC's Fort Dawnguard Reborn
• Northfire's Castle Volkihar
• CC Fort Dawnguard Reborn 4k
• FranklyHD Dawngaurd Armor and Weapons
• Clear Refracting Icicle and Frost Atronach
• Serana Dialog Edit
• (For characters, WICO)

Reverted Mods

Ones which caused too much grief with incompatibility:

• Open Cities - it never quite worked and prevented others like JK Skyrim from working
• EnhancedLightsandFX - early on I had so much mod conflicts that I just took it 
• BirdsOfSkyrim - Deinstalled due to scripting issues. I liked seeing diverse birds, and the airborn birds are fantastic. But sometimes birds are floating inches off the ground or doing glitchy things killing immersion. Also left hundreds of unattached scripts that needed cleaning.
• footprints - performance problems

I know plenty of people love and use the above mods but I just had so many issues with the rest of my mod list that I decided to go without.

Mods too GPU greedy:

• Verdant - Altered Forest Grass -  I could see I'd want to take screenshots with these but the stutter makes VR nausea-inducing.  Maybe if I get my next gen GPU, save up that money for the RTX 2080ti.
• ENB- I decided that I'd rather have higher SS at 200% with 4k textures rather than have ENB.
• KS Hairdo's - I thought it was a performance killer but I had to massively prune my list when the build became unstable.

Rejected out of personal preference

• Lanterns Of Skyrim - added too many lanterns throughout the realm making it unnaturally bright and killing immersion of the dark night
• Total Character Makeover -TCO characters looked too video gamey and samey. WICO NPC makeovers just looked more natural and lore friendly.
• Cathedral Plants - looked great in the flat images but in VR, did not look as natural as the other human made 4k plant textures.
• Noble Skyrim 

SkyrimVR Tourism

People lollygag in Skyrim for hundreds of hours for very different reasons. I made this list to figure out how to introduce friends to SkyrimVR in less than 2 hours to give them the highlights of Skyrim.
(Don't forget to toggle combat(tcai) for your tourist if they don't want to be constantly attacked.)

Cities Tour

Places anyone can go via fast travel or lore friendly carriage:

• Markarth - nothing beats that epic dwemer fantasy feel of a visit to the westernmost corner of Skyrim after the rather humble Nord settlements.  Since this is a vertical city with a lot of staircase jumping- let visitors know they should move rather slowly or risk getting motion sick.  The interior buildings are a bit ho-hum so this is a city best enjoyed from the outside with the exception of  Nchuand-Zel Excavation Site accessible from Understone Keep.   Also don't be afraid to jump in the water to gather alchemy supplies (but don't let anyone queasy see the dead body in a cage). Also walking out of the city gates and heading north following the river is a pretty jaunt.  Note you may get attacked by the fierce Forsworn who at best have some cool looking skull laden gear to loot.  Warning, stone beds at the Silver-Blood Inn definitely are not that comfortable.  Dwemer Museum is a total let down.
• Riften -  After the drab grey hues of Skyrim, the warm yellow aspens of Riften give you such a cosy feel of a  pretty fishing village.  Casual tourists need not be burdened with the dark side of Riften though the doings of the mead mafia family or the Thieves Guild in the Ratway may be of interest. Be careful tourists don't inadvertently enter Honorhall Orphanage if you didn't finish the Innocence Lost quest.   Honeyside is my first home base and favorite livable city despite it's seamy corrupt underside.  Riften skies at night is a special treat.  
• Whiterun - I remember being quite impressed by the grand hall of Dragonsreach after emerging from the provincial backwaters of Helgen and Riverwood.  I first got the LOTR horse lords of Rohan vibe here from the architecture. Also one could get rid of Heimskr for a more peaceful visit. But the real charm of Whiterun is being insulted by Nazeem or Braith for which you only need to hang out in the markets.  No one does annoying NPCs better than Bethesda.   

I find Solitude and Windhelm rather uninteresting even with extensive mods. I parked the airship Dev Aveza behind the Blue Palace via Legacy of the Dragonborn that makes it somewhat worthwhile for a visit and a fantastic place to defend from a dragon attack.  Also as a Khajiit I find Windhelm's racist guards too tiresome.

Takes some work but open to fast travel after unlock:

• Raven Rock- Access to the island of Solstheim is only available after starting the Dragonborn quest after fetching the Horn of the Jurgen Windcaller after meeting up with the Greybeards in High Hrothgar and then a randomly generated attack by cultists.  I don't play the main story line but I did just enough to unlock Solstheim.  Dunmer architecture is so weirdly different from rest of Skyrim, it feels like another planet.  Raven Rock is the most sci fi locale in Skyrim.  For some Solstheim may not be a refreshing visit due to the black vog constantly ejecting from the volcano and oppressive ashen landscape. A visit back to cool green wooded mountains such as those of Falkreath Hold surrounding Lake Ilinalta is recommended to offset the dry dusty feels of Solstheim.

Blackreach & Dwemer Ruins

Blackreach is undoubtedly the most fantastical hidden underground world in Skyrim.  The city of giant glowing mushrooms is a total head trip.  In hindsight I could have just materialized via console command, but I dutifully slogged through endless halls of mechanical spiders and creepy Falmer starting at Alfthand with a party of 3 followers to help me.  You have to first get the attunement sphere from Septimus Signus maker north of Winterhold.  Sadly by the time I finally reached Blackreach, I was way too tuckered out to appreciate it and had to go back the next day.

(Blackreach alone is rather vast to explore. When friends don't have time, the compact cavern of the mod Tel Nalta II gives a condensed flavor or Blackreach.)

The Wilds Tour

The real joy for me is to wander around Skyrim with my furry friend Meeko.  I have not been disappointed anytime I've randomly just chosen a spot on the map or just walk out from a city. The few locations of note:

• Sulfurous Hot Springs of Eastmarch near dragon mount (near Darkwater Crossing/Kynareth)
• Anywhere on the Rift
• Throat of the World

Grottos/Open Caverns

Dungeons are a bit too claustrophobic for me and I prefer grottos or open caverns with trees in them.

• Broken Oar Grotto - includes a shipwreck
• Eldergleam Sanctuary

The Houses Tour

The vanilla homes are rather ho-hum but these player home mods are worth showing off to friends:

• Tel Nalta II - an entire mushroom village.  The Tower Cavern with a giant dwemer spider is a great place to start the tour
• Shalidor's Staff - a portable home inside a magical staff
• Antennaria 
• Island Hobbit Home - for Tolkien fans
• Windpath - Located overlooking a waterfall, you can hike up north to get to a troll cave.

SkyrimVR Grind vs Cheats

SkyrimVR is single player game existing purely for your enjoyment only so there is no need to slog through dungeons if that’s not your thing. More than in a pancake game,  it takes real physical energy to stab enemies in VR and there is so many times you want to pop off yet another draugr or wolf pack at the end of a hard workday.

If you want to just be an explorer/tourist without having to invest 100s of hours in combat and questing, here are some command line cheats I am not ashamed to use. Console command lines in Skyrim are definitely worth knowing not for bumping up play but to get out of bugs and glitches.  In VR, it's awkward to use the keyboard (~ to enter mode, shift-~ to exit) so I normally do this at the beginning of the game before I fully gear up.

• tmm - unlock all map markers so you can fast travel anywhere.  You can more immersively ride a carriage but if you are the kind of person that doesn't mind knowing the plot before seeing a movie, tmm.  Skyrim still holds plenty of places to explore that are not marked or will be locked unless you complete a quest.
• tcai - toggles combat so no one will attack you.  This setting is not sticky so you will have to reapply each time. Unfortunately the only mod I found to avoid combat is only for Playstation(Ring of Peace).  There are some unintended consequences of turning off combat: if you have followers and they encounter enemies, they will stay in place in a trance without attacking. But if you fast travel, they will join you again.  If an "attack" is part of a plot of a quest line like the Greymanes vs Battleborn where one of the Greymane bros attacks you when you enter his house, tcai will not change that. 
• coc <locationRefId> - teleports you to a place. Useful if you can't find the map maker and also takes you to any named place in Skyrim. Note if you materialize in place which need a completed quest, you may be confronted or attacked on arrival.  I.e. I wanted to see the Dwemer Museum in Markarth but didn't want to bother with the quest. When I coc'ed into the museum, guards put a bounty on me so I had to off them just so I can have a look around in peach.  Was not worth... I had to pay the bounty once I tried to leave. Sad that the life of 3 guards only amounts to 100 septims in Skyrim.
• player.additem f 100000 - give yourself some gold if you're tired of thieving and looting. But remember, like in the real world, money gets you only so far. If you find yourself in the wilds with a boatload of septims but an ornery troll chases you a hill, well SOL.
• showracemenu - if you get tired of having picked the wrong race(Altmer not as fun as you thought eh, orsimer is where the action is), you can change your race and looks. Note this will fork your character file so the old one will still exist separately.
• You can also use alternative showracemenu mod for convenience
• tim/tgm - immortal mode/god mode, I never use these because that would be no fun for me although now I question why I do so much work hoarding my stash everywhere instead of carrying everything everywhere...

The console commands can do almost anything- unlock shouts, spawn items, advance skill levels that sort of thing and you have to decide for yourself what cheats you want to use if any.  I for myself decided that the grind for gaining skills- archery, smithing, and enchanting was the fun part so I limited myself to opening up map markers and giving myself 500K.

Also- there's no shame in playing novice level if you are not into combat. There's plenty of time to  work up to be Legendary.