That trying to keep my .Esp and mod count down under 75 for good stability means I have to pass on so many armor and weapons mods out there.

Damn you talented modelers and modders! Why must you make so many tempting that I can't use because it would make my Skyrim a flaming, CTD ruin?


(I'm guess I'm also slightly sadden by the fact that I'm not the 6 different people with the talents required to make the mod I really want to, but thats a minor thing compared to all the things I see on the Nexus and Workshop that I want.)

I know how you feel, I can't play Oblivion anymore, I have 185 plugins not including retextures of everything in the game and it crashes every 10 minutes, decided to keep these mods rather than take them out, too crucial I'd rather have all my favorite mods, not to mention I am discovering more every day, and have a game that doesn't work, than have a game that does work and nothing to enjoy.

I am running ca 83 esp mods without any problems.
You could try using Wrye.

I do.

Can't you merge esps? Like Morrowind and Oblivion can?

(never modded Skyrim yet, so don't know if that's possible)

The CK's version control is the only tool capable of doing this right now, and it's a terrible pain to set up. Plus, it outputs the files in ESM format, so you'd need to convert them back to ESP, meaning even more work.

Oh, and you need to Hex edit Skyrim.ESM to allow you to check out forms parented to it that your mod changes.

All in all, not terribly practical.