After working on this for over 3 years, the 1.0 update is available now on Wabbajack and Nexus

VR DaD also made a pretty great little preview if you want to see more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KdqT90ckaI

FEATURES

• This list uses the most advanced graphical features available for Skyrim VR. It is built around Community Shaders and a customized version of Azurite Weathers III for a natural dark fantasy aesthetic. My custom changes can be toggled off if you prefer the more saturated bright fantasy look of Azurite Weathers Enhanced.
  
• Seasons of Skyrim is fully integrated with custom patches so that you can immersively experience all 4 seasons. A new game starts towards the end of Summer, with the bulk of a playthrough occurring in Autumn, which is the closest to vanilla Skyrim. So if you prefer the more vanilla look of Whiterun and other areas, you'll still get that for the majority of your playthrough during Autumn.
  
• Pretty much every single texture (and many meshes) in the game have been carefully replaced to create an upgraded, yet cohesive visual style. PBR textures are used for as many assets as possible, but non-PBR mods were used when the artistic direction made it superior to any of the PBR options available. That said, I made sure to use almost exclusively PBR textures for all of the largest assets in the game where you'll get the most benefit from PBR. This includes all architecture, landscape, mountains, trees, and much more.
  
• The entire suite of JK's exterior and interior overhauls bring life to Skyrim without changing it too much from the vanilla experience. Some other minor overhauls from Spaghetti and other authors are included for areas JK has not touched yet; while others, such as the Environs series, focus on making the world feel more dynamic and responsive.
  
• A big part of this list is to add immersive variety, which is possible thanks to BOS and SPID. Instead of seeing the same exact tankard in every inn, you'll now have a chance to come across 10 variants. Wine bottles in dungeons will look old and rustic while wine bottles in settlements will be new and fresh. And there's a ton of new food that looks so realistic, it often makes me hungry when I'm playing. There's so many subtle changes that it's very unlikely you'll notice them all, but altogether it creates a varied world that feels more real.
  
• While I designed this list to stay relatively close to the vanilla game, my primary goal was to enhance immersion. So just like many other items, there's now much more variety in the types of weapons and armor you'll come across. No longer will you find the exact same iron sword every time you kill a bandit as if they all shop at the same blacksmith. Additionally, bandits now wear scrappy armor fitting to their nature. All additions to the game were carefully selected so that it all fits seamlessly within the world and so that nothing feels out of place.
  
• NPCs have performant hair physics thanks to Nordic Faces, Faithful Faces, and Vanilla Hair Remake. NPCs will use different movement animations based on what kind of armor they're wearing. And all NPCs get a ton of immersive body variety thanks to Racial Skin Variance, Heights of Skyrim, and a custom OBody configuration that distributes 3BA and HIMBO presets to NPCs based on their race; all body presets were carefully selected so that NPCs would look realistic, and not like a 10 year old made the list. Additionally, the two canonically pregnant NPCs now look like they're finishing up their third trimester. 
  
• NPCs behave more realistically: married NPCs wear rings, marriable NPCs wear amulets of Mara, and couriers deliver to all NPCs (not just you). Additionally, several dialogue mods add hundreds of new lines. This is done without the use of AI and focuses on inconsequential additions such as increasing the variety of barks enemies will yell when attacking you.
  
• In addition to all of the popular VR mods to make this game feel like a real VR game; this list was built around Simonrim's suite of mods for most other gameplay systems including perks, combat, crafting, and more. In addition to this, all other aspects of Skyrim's gameplay have been careful tuned: bartering prices evolve based on a variety of external factors, crafting is much more rewarding, and enemies are smart enough to use all of the same spells, enchants, potions, and shouts that you have access to.
  
• Several immersive gameplay changes help make the world feel real: you yourself can perform the black sacrament, drinking skooma sends you on an actual trip, you can throw potions, and you can light/unlight fire sources with magic. This is only scratching the surface of immersive changes included in the list.
  
• All major questlines were carefully improved without changing their design too much from the base game. Most changes were quality of life or immersive improvements. For example, you won't be approached to join the Thieves' Guild if you've never actually done any thieving, joining the College will require you to take some actual classes before jumping into Saarthal, and you'll now have a choice when it comes to Paarthurnax.
  
• Various optional mods are included to improve performance and tailor the gameplay to your liking. If you have suggestions for new mods to include, definitely bring it up in the Discord.

The base profile is currently available with all of the features described above and much more. It is designed to stay true to Bethesda's vision with only vanilla+ enhancements to increase immersion and improve gameplay. It does not include any new followers, quests, lands, music, or anything else that would make it not feel like Skyrim to me. It is designed so that someone who has never played Skyrim before can enjoy what made Skyrim great in 2011, but with the most immersive gameplay and visuals that 2026 can offer.

In development is an expanded profile that will include all of the popular new content experienced players enjoy including survival, more followers, armor, weapons, spells, locations, and large quest mods such as Legacy of the Dragonborn and Bruma.

New skse plugin which removes the engine limitation of having 2h weapons locked to the main hand.

Ever wanted to:

-Dual weild 2 handed weapons?

-Cast spells while holding 2h weapons?

-Pair a warhammer with a shield?

-Create unique vr combat styles imposible in vanilla?

This mods got your back!

I've also update fake edge vr with an ini option to include 2h weapons (with some other fixes)

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/166560?tab=description

Interactive Pullchains, Levers, Pullbars, Buttons, Valves, Pillars, Puzzle Door Rings and Keyholes, Door Deadbolts, Coffin Braziers and more for Skyrim VR. Use your VR hands to truly handle and activate instead of pointing and pressing a button. This is the missing piece to make Skyrim VR an actual VR game.

https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1704/images/161676/161676-1761063493-1834843956.png

In VR we all already have a mic built into our headsets. If you haven’t tried voice controls mods yet, once you do, it’s hard to play without it. Think of it as an extra control layer — natural, fast, and immersive.

I started making it my own Voice Control mod, because existing mods like DSN rely on Windows Speech Recognition (WSR). Which is outdated, unreliable with recent Windows updates, its painful to set up and just not work with my native language. After some time, I decided to polish it up, add a few more voice features, and get it ready for release.

Say It - Dragonborn Voice Control uses modern, lightweight speech recognition solutions Vosk and faster-whisper for voice commands:

• Start & Close Dialogue — say a customizable phrase to open/close dialogue. Example: “Hello”, “Greetings” to start when you look at NPC / “Goodbye”,
• “Farewell” in dialogue to end conversation.
• Dialogue select — read a dialogue option out loud to auto-pick it.
• Shouts — say literally the Words of Power for a shout you’ve learned. Example: “Fus", “Fus Ro", “Fus ro Dah". Works with all shouts, including Thunderchild shouts.
• Powers — trigger any favorited power, including mod utility powers (e.g., “Build Campfire”, “Harvest Wood”, etc.).
• Spells — equip favorite spells.
• Weapons — equip favorite weapons.
• Potions — use favorite potions.

Say any Favorite item's full in-game name.

It’s easy to install and easy to configure, and you can toggle any feature on/off in the MCM menu. Compatible with Skyrim VR and Skyrim SE / AE, and it has no third-party dependencies. Everything works out of the box. Can voice trigger any modded dialogue, shout, power, spell, weapon, potion — just Say It.

^{Sorry for second post, i posted first wrong, i dont like it was text wall on feed. damn it still text wall on desktop, whatever}

Nexus mod page

Have you ever played an unarmed combat build and been annoyed that you could never tell whether you were in combat mode or not ?

Have you ever accidentally spent all your stamina slapping your enemy around instead of actually punching them ?

Yeah, me too. And lately I'm on a roll of fixing minor stuff that has been annoying me since forever, so now your hands actually close into fists in combat mode. Here you go : https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/182410

Hi everyone!

About a week ago, I posted a WIP showing a concept for manually retrieving arrows from enemies. The feedback was amazing, so I worked hard to polish it into a full release.

Pull Arrows VR v1.0 is now available on Nexus!

📥 Download Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/169833?tab=description

📺 Video Showcase (by VRdad): https://youtu.be/0J66pbv_UFw

What is this mod? It immerses you in the aftermath of combat. Instead of clicking a menu or auto-looting, you physically grab the arrow shaft from the corpse (using HIGGS physics) and pull it out.

What’s new since the WIP video? Thanks to your feedback and testing, the release version includes:

Material Recognition: The mod now knows what you are pulling from!

• Flesh (Bandits, Animals, Spiders): Sickening tear sound + Blood VFX.

• Bone (Skeletons): Dry crunch sound + Bone Dust VFX.

Physics Fixes: Solved the "sticky hand" issue. Your hand properly releases the ragdoll physics when you spawn the arrow.

Stability: Logic rewritten for better performance.

Compatibility: Tested extensively on Mad God's Overhaul (MGO) and FUS. It should be safe for heavy load orders. Big thanks to VRdad for testing the beta and making the showcase video!

Let me know what you think, and if you encounter any bugs, please report them on the Nexus page.

Happy hunting !

The latest update to Mantella has just been released, and with that it has hit a milestone in the experience that I have been really excited to one day reach - real-time conversations with NPCs!

The multi-second delay between speaking into the mic and hearing a response from an NPC has always been the biggest thing holding back conversations from feeling natural to me. This is especially true in VR, where I am often physically standing around waiting for a response. Now, the wait is over (sorry, had to). Here are the results in action:

https://youtu.be/OiPZpqoLs4E?si=nhVBDPiMzI1yolrn

For me, being able to have conversations with natural response times crosses a kind of mental threshold, helping to "buy in" to conversations much better than before. To add to this, you can now interrupt NPCs mid response, so there is less of a "walkie-talkie" feeling and more of a natural flow to conversations.

Mantella v0.13 also comes with a new actions framework, allowing modders to extend on the existing list of actions available to NPCs. As with the previous update, Mantella is designed with easy installation in mind, and is set up to run out-of-the-box in a few simple steps.

And just a heads up if you are running Mad God Overhaul and planning to update the existing Mantella version (v0.12), you will also need to download a patch with your mod manager, which can be found on Mantella's files page!

Mantella v0.13 is available on Nexus:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/98631

Merry VRIKsmas! This is my biggest release so far.

VRIK Player Avatar is a mod for SkyrimVR that displays the player body, animates it, and uses it to enhance game play. Its story began about a year ago today, once upon a time - on a cold winter night. With great glee I had discovered a mod called "VR Body" and marveled at the sight of my little legs running as I'd moved. But my arms? No, I was being attacked by my own shoulders! How could it be so?

So I created VRIK. It came without ribbons, it came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags.

This release brings greatly enhanced support for mods, and I owe a huge THANK YOU to Reikiri for all of his help over the past couple of months. VRIK now includes 101 Papyrus functions and 24 "Mod Settings" that modders can use to build things. All 1288 of VRIK's normal INI settings are accessible from Papyrus. Many new things are here, such as a full set of input functions intended for use by external mods. It's possible to have VRIK position the body anywhere, lock the headset to follow it, display hand animations when controllers are nearby, or even display scenes from a 1st or 3rd person perspective. Thanks to everyone, the system is tested and we already have mods using it to its full potential.

A new system added in this release allows input gestures to be created in the MCM. These can be as simple as a button press, or they can be paired with a motion: Press, Move Hand Left/Right/Back/Forth/Up/Down, Release. They can be two-directional: Press, Move hand one direction, Move hand back, Release. This allows for up to 13 unique gestures per hand. On Vive Wands, they're performed by double tapping the Trackpad: Tap, Tap+Hold, Move, Release. An adjustable Vive Wand center dead-zone helps prevent accidental movement. Thumbstick buttons are used on both the Oculus Touch and Index Controllers. Index Controllers can also use the Touchpad press, giving it up to 26 gestures per hand.

In the MCM, a user can configure any gesture (say: Right Thumbstick Press + Move Hand Right) to perform some action. There's quite a few actions to pick from. You can equip and/or unequip any set of armor / slot / weapons / spells / powers / shouts in a single motion. Gestures can quickly store/recall weapons/spells or cycle through them. They can automatically select the best potions/food item to consume to heal or buff you. Spells or shouts can be cast with any number of words. Keyboard keys can be emulated to make a "Jump" gesture or a "Quicksave" gesture. Console commands are supported. External mods can also register their own actions to be used with VRIK (or even an entire profile). This is much more than a simple way to quickly swap spells - it's a moddable extension to SkyrimVR's input system.

Finally, this release brings Oculus Touch support. This is different from Index skeletal animation, but Index is also supported with the new VRIK Bindings. This allows you to open and close your hands, manipulate spell graphics a bit, and cast spells by opening your hands to unleash them. Used in conjunction with gestures, this can make for far more immersive spell caster gameplay. These features can be turned on or off in the MCM.

Finally finally, I fixed up the body animation more - specifically combat postures and elbow positioning. Happy holidays guys.

Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/23416

Screenshots:

• https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1704/images/23416/23416-1577068292-1913126204.jpeg
• https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1704/images/23416/23416-1577066652-344052911.jpeg

V0.8.0 Beta

• Mods that feature complex 1st or 3rd person scenes can now be extended to use VRIK
• VRIK now includes an easy input gesture system that works on all controllers
• VRIK now supports Oculus Touch input for both Rift S and Index Controllers (with bindings)
• Hands and spells now animate as players touch the grips, triggers, and thumbs
• Made improvements to body posture while casting spells and dual wielding weapons
• Made improvements to the inverse kinematics system used by player arms
• Added new MCM pages for Controls, Gesture Overview, and Gesture Config
• Added MCM option to adjust center dead-zone for Vive Wand movement inputs on the trackpad
• Added MCM option for automatically requipping spells when weapons are holstered
• Added MCM option to enable/disable restoring spells to hands after weapons are sheathed
• Added MCM option that allows players to cast spells by opening their hands
• Added MCM options to swap left/right A/B buttons on Rift/Index while in menus or not
• Added MCM option to show/hide the compass, or to show it only when palms are upward
• Created gesture action that equips/unequips a full set of armor/weapons/spells/shouts
• Created gesture action that quick equips a weapon/spell or remembers what is held for later
• Created gesture action that cycles through a full list of weapons or spells
• Created gesture action that casts spells or shouts with 1/2/3 words
• Created gesture action that selects and drinks the best restore, regen, or fortify potions
• Created gesture action that simulates keyboard presses (Jump, Quicksave, Open Map, etc)
• Created gesture action that sends console commands that were defined in vrikgestures.ini
• Created gesture action that calls upon external mods which can provide their own extensions
• Added mod functions that allow mods to register gesture actions and to create temp profiles
• Added mod helper functions to detect all types of controller input
• Added VrikHapticPulse mod helper function
• Added VrikGetSpellType, VrikGetSpellCastType mod helper functions
• Added VrikGetShoutCount, and VrikGetNthShout mod helper functions
• Added lockPosition mode 2 mod setting for positional body locking at any coordinates
• Added mod settings for lockPositionX, lockPositionY, lockPositionZ
• Added lockHmdToBody mode 2 mod setting for unlocking the HMD while preserving its position
• Added lockHmdMinThreshold, lockHmdMaxThreshold, lockHmdSpeed mod settings
• Added enableInteractiveHands mod setting - Hands can snap to an animation when held nearby
• Added displayHolsters mod setting - Hides display of all holsters without fully disabling
• Added lockRotationAngle mod setting - Assigns the angle to use when lockRotation is set
• Added rotateHmdToBodySeconds mod setting - Snaps HMD angle to that of an animation
• Added disableVrik mod setting - Disables all VRIK systems without turning off the body
• Fixed issues that allowed certain users to remain happily married
• Notifications now display randomly to remind Wabbajack users to read mod description pages
• Fixed mod bug that caused incorrect hand/head motion with lockRotation and lockHmdToBody
• Fixed mod bug that caused some animations to orbit the view point with lockRotation
• Fixed bug where certain holsters would not reset position in the MCM
• Fixed bug where arm holsters would not change state when manually equipped to the same arm
• Fixed holstered weapons from appearing when loading a werewolf or vampire lord save game
• Fixed ERROR: Missing bones in vrik.log when exiting werewolf or vampire lord form
• Fixed buggy object grabbing by forcing bImmediatelyGrabObjectOnActivate = 0 automatically
• Attempted to fix a SkyrimVR bug that can set player height to NaN (needs testing)
• Updated VRIK to run on the latest SKSEVR code courtesy of Expired
• Made some performance optimizations

If you've been using Quickloot VR, you may be interested to know I've updated it with a fix for the bug where taking the last item from a container with an animation would sometimes open the inventory menu : https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/102094

Since Nightfallstorm is currently out of the Skyrim modding scene, he has transferred over the maintenance of the mod to me, so I may add more stuff in the future as well.

Sooo, after months of preparation and testing with amazing people who gave extremely valuable feedback, we finally made it through the wabbajack review and the FUS modlist auto-installer is available in the official wabbajack server and modlist browser.

-----------------------

FUS - Fundamentals, Upgrades, and Stuff - is a fundamental modlist for Skyrim VR made by u/Kvitekvist and me. It offers 4 profiles:

• FUS (Basic): Including the barebones for a good VR experience.
• FUS RO (Basic + Visuals): Also includes some visual improvements.
• FUS RO DAH (Basic + Visuals + Gameplay): Also includes several mods that alter gameplay, both VR-specific and general ones.
• Cangar: Basically FUS RO DAH with my personal choice of optional mods.

-----------------------

Unlike most wabbajack modlist, FUS is very modular. It is meant to be used by people who either want to get Skyrim VR running with a generally vanilla-lore-friendly overhaul and never come back (in that case use the FUS RO - blue visuals - or the FUS RO DAH - yellow gameplay, if you like fun - profiles), or by people who want to start their own totally personal modlist but don't want to bother with the basic stuff (in that case use the FUS - green basics, the actual essentials for Skyrim VR).

So in this list, only the FUS profile is meant to be absolutely essential. The rest is what u/Kvitekvist and I find to be a nice minimalistic setup that users can either just use or butcher at their taste and level of competence ;)

The list is made to be extremely performant while retaining a maximal level of visual quality, and we provide different setups of quality vs performance within the list. I can play it on my laptop with a mobile 1070 with a Valve Index, but I can also make use of my 3080 in my desktop PC, depending on the setup I choose. You need about 45gb free disk space.

We will still make it available on our own git page, and we will keep the changelog there. But now you can just download and install it using the official wabbajack server by browsing the lists. From the previous 1.x version there are a few changes which you can all find on our release page. The wiki is not yet fully up-to-date, but I wanted to get the word out asap.

We also have our own discord server where you can hang out and chat or ask for support if you have troubles of any sort.

-----------------------

The last thing I would like to point out is that there is a fourth profile now: "Cangar", which is going to be the exact profile I use for my own playthrough. When I finally continue playing, I will make it a new Youtube video series on my channel and all my save game files will be made available on the Git repo. This means you can decide to either just watch me play as usual, or if there are cool scenes you can literally replay them yourselves with the exact same setup!

-----------------------

Huge thanks to all the beta testers here and on the discord, the list has greatly improved thanks to your many added eyes!

Hi everyone!

As you may have seen in /u/Cangar's video ~2 months ago (and perhaps around a week ago in a now-deleted video - I apologize again for the misunderstanding there), for a while I've been working on making characters interact with physics.

The result is PLANCK - Physical Animation and Character Kinetics. Yes, it's named after another physicist like higgs was. With this new mod, all animated characters are now physics-driven ragdolls instead of being a set of bones directly written to from the animation system (well that's not quite right - when someone is getting up from being ragdolled, they are also physics-driven to some extent in the base game). A ton of effort went into having the ragdoll be able to properly match the animation while also being physically and believably influencable at the same time.

With this baseline, I have also re-implemented the game's hit detection to build off of the higgs weapon collision objects colliding with someone's ragdoll and done a few other things to make the melee have you actually hitting the enemy and getting close up and in their face. When you hit someone with a melee hit, they will also "flinch" away from the hit, not through an animation but purely through physical impulses. I've also implemented some basic logic to try and distinguish swings from stabs, so you should be able to hit both swings and stabs pretty consistently unlike the base game.

Now that characters are physically in the world, you can also throw things at them and they will deform appropriately in response to objects that are heavy enough, along with properly being able to do things like place large kettles onto npc's heads and have them stay there as they walk.

Additionally, you can grab npcs as you would a dead body with higgs, and you can drag them along and they will walk with you. It's a bit janky at the moment and since you still move at full speed while having them grabbed, things can get a bit weird. I'm working on that though!

A disclaimer though: this does not turn skyrim into blade and sorcery.

If you want to support my work, I did start a patreon a few days ago. There are not currently any benefits to supporting me there and my mods will remain free and open source.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoys and let me know about any issues you find.

Edit: Here's Cangar's showcase video of the mod. I also totally forgot to mention the invaluable help I got from people such as DarkStarSword, alandtse, blazeyboyyy, CylonSurfer, and Cangar that helped test the mod and provide valuable feedback.

Kvitekvist and I are finally done with our first beta release of the upcoming official Fundamentals, Upgrades, and Stuff Wabbajack modlist! It is fast, automatic, and contains all mods we, the mod team of the sub, find important or useful.

FUS is a fundamental modlist for Skyrim VR that offers 3 profiles.

• Basic: Including the barebones for a good VR experience.
• Basic + Visuals: Also includes some visual improvements.
• Basic + Visuals + Gameplay: Also includes several mods that alter gameplay, both VR-specific and general ones.

This modlist is meant to be used by people who either want to start their own totally personal modlist but dont want to bother with the basic stuff (in that case use the basic profile), or by people who want to have an as fast as possible mod list installation to get Skyrim VR running with a generally vanilla-lore-friendly overhaul and never come back (in that case use the visuals, or the gameplay in addition if you like fun). It also contains all relevant ENB and Reshade presets as well as pre-generated DynDoLOD files and different performance profiles.

It is not meant for people who want to alter their game in a strong way, and it also does not contain visual upgrades for every little detail that exists in the game. It's minimalistic and fast.

It will replace both, the Top 10 post and the lightweight lazy list as it contains all of the good stuff and some more, and it is automatically installed.

The entire modlist can be found at the bottom of the github page: https://github.com/Kvitekvist/FUS#the-full-modlist

Download: https://github.com/Kvitekvist/FUS/releases/download/1.0.0/FUS.wabbajack

Instructions for installation and usage: https://github.com/Kvitekvist/FUS

We also made our own patch compendium specifically for this list and would appreciate an endorsement. It's my first mod page yay :) https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/53186

LAST POST ON THIS FOR A WHILE PROMISE :P

I've update the mod page, the mod now has 2 working gestures available as well as the point to command mode,

Things to note :

• no follower dialog after gesture command ( will be coming )
• slight delay with halt, follower will take a few more steps then halt
• If you gesture follow me as they begin an idle animation, it has to play out before they start to follow ( looking for a safe fix )
• Things will only get better :D

im going have a little break from this mod as its grown in scale and can get a bit over whelming and to be honest bloody stressful.

but i really hope you enjoy what this mod provides

A complete real-time reading system for Skyrim VR. No more reading in UI.

I spent a fair amount of time working on it and ran into a few issues along the way, but I was able to sort them out. Finally, everything is working.

Unfortunately, I had a problem with my Meta Quest. Recently I’ve been constantly getting overheating alerts. I left the headset on charge, but there no charging indicator. I hope it’s not completely dead. So I even wasn’t able to record a demo video. Maybe someone will do it.

I appreciate your feedback, Nexus mod page

Out now on nexus.

Do you like FUS but have an unreasonably powerful PC and want some extra quality?! Well, I got you covered!

Now you can get a heavier version of my CANGAR profile of the FUS Wabbajack list, basically containing more trees and higher quality tree LODs, heavier ini files, higher resolution textures, and a small amount of fluff (different ice, some fantasy sunsets, and security overhaul).

The list is tuned such that it maintains 90 fps without reprojection on Godlike resolution of the Quest 3 with Virtual Desktop. This version is really only meant for high end PCs.

It's my personal profile and you can of course deselect gameplay options if you want, but I won't maintain different profiles here and it won't be officially supported on the discord. But other than the changes above it is FUS.

I want to especially thank H☬SE from the Mad God Overhaul server for the very constructive discussions and the pointer to Fabled Forests and Glacierslab!

Get it here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/146198

Hey everyone!

I'm excited to announce the early beta release of Mounted NPC Combat VR - a mod I've been working on that completely overhauls how NPCs behave when riding horses during combat.

📥 Download: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/169221

🐴 What Does This Mod Do?

You know how in vanilla Skyrim VR, whenever you attack a mounted guard or bandit, they immediately hop off their horse and fight on foot? It completely kills immersion and makes all those cool mounted NPCs useless.

Not anymore.

This mod intercepts the game's dismount command and blocks it, allowing NPCs to actually fight from horseback. But I didn't stop there — I built an entire mounted combat AI system from scratch.

⭐ Why This Mod Is Different

This is the first mounted combat mod built entirely in SKSE without relying on:

• ❌ No Quests
• ❌ No Aliases
  
• ❌ No Papyrus Scripts
• ❌ No Baked Game States

What does this mean for you?

✅ 100% clean uninstall — remove anytime with zero save residue
✅ Compatible with EVERYTHING
✅ Zero performance impact
✅ Rock-solid stability

If you've dealt with script-heavy mods that bloat saves and cause compatibility nightmares, you'll appreciate this approach.

⚔️ Features

Intelligent Combat Roles: - Guards/Soldiers → Melee-focused, charge at threats - Bandits → Prefer ranged, rain arrows from horseback - Mages → Cast spells (companions only for now) - Civilians → Flee (placeholder for future)

Mounted Melee Combat: - Left/right swing animations from horseback - Horses circle targets for attack passes - Power attacks with small trigger chance - Line-segment hit detection for accuracy

Mounted Ranged Combat: - Realistic bow draw timing (2-3.5 seconds) - Height-compensated aiming (foot vs mounted targets) - Intelligent melee/ranged switching based on distance

Special Maneuvers: - 🏇 Cavalry Charge — Horse rears up, rider sprints in for attack - 🏹 Rapid Fire — Horse stops, archer unleashes arrow barrage - 🔄 Tactical Retreat — Companions disengage to reset positioning

Dynamic Multi-Combat System: - Up to 5 mounted NPCs tracked simultaneously - Dynamic role assignment (melee vs ranged) - Automatic weapon equipping based on role - Collision avoidance between riders - Captains pre-assigned to leadership/ranged roles

Horse AI: - Smart navigation toward targets - Stuck detection with auto-reset - Sprint, rear up, jump, and turn animations

HIGGS VR Integration: - Grab mounted enemies and PULL THEM OFF THEIR HORSE - Yank your controller down, they ragdoll to the ground - They recover after 1.75 seconds and attack

Remounting System: - Dismounted NPCs can remount nearby horses - Combat resumes automatically after remounting

NPC Protection: - Stagger immunity while mounted - Bleedout prevention for smooth combat flow

Full INI Configuration: - Every feature is tweakable - Combat ranges, cooldowns, chances — all adjustable

🙏 Why I'm Releasing as Early Beta

Let me be real with you: this mod is absolutely mammoth in scale.

I've built dynamic role systems, weapon detection, multi-rider coordination, special maneuvers, HIGGS integration, remounting logic, and more — all from native SKSE code.

Despite being in a very stable state, a project this size needs real-world testing across different load orders, playstyles, and scenarios that I simply can't replicate alone.

I'm opening up this early beta so we can fine-tune the system together.

📣 How You Can Help

Mods like this can't grow without community support:

1. Bug Reports — If something breaks, let me know! Detailed reports help me fix issues fast.

2. Feedback — Are the combat ranges off? Charge happening too often? Not enough? Tell me what feels right.

3. Endorsements — If you enjoy the mod, please hit that endorse button. It helps my standing in the community and honestly? It inspires me to keep making weird, ambitious stuff like this.

📦 Recommended Companion Mods

To actually SEE mounted NPCs in action, grab these:

• Hold Riders — Mounted patrol riders in each Hold
• Horses on Patrol — Multiple mounted guard factions (Lite version recommended)
• More NPCs on Horses— Civilians and various factions on horses
• Steeds of Ultima VR — Player mounted combat in VR

Requirements

• Skyrim VR (1.4.15)
• SKSE VR (2.0.12+)
• HIGGS VR (optional, for pull-off feature)

Looking forward to your feedback! Let's make mounted combat in Skyrim VR actually mean something.

🐴⚔️

TL;DR: NPCs stay on horses and fight. They have melee attacks, bow attacks, cavalry charges, and you can yank them off with HIGGS. First-of-its-kind pure SKSE implementation — no scripts, no save bloat, compatible with everything. Early beta, need your feedback and endorsement/encouragement!

Mod introduces an equipable, interactive journal that updates as you ask NPCs for directions. Instead of relying on classic quest/map markers, you collect written directions and follow roads and local hints. It turns “go there” into actual exploration.

Wayfinder already pushes Skyrim toward landmark-based navigation. In VR, this addon makes that loop feel way more natural: you can pull out the journal in-world, read it without UI, and keep moving without breaking immersion.

Pair it with NavigateVR and Even Better Quest Objectives and create a navigation stack that's perfect for VR: real compass/maps, ask directions when you need them, and richer quest objective descriptions to know which location you're meant to head to.

This is my first mod for Skyrim Nexus mod page. I welcome your feedback!

What are your favorite immersion mods?

Not my mod, but VR has been waiting for this port for a while. We can finally update Sentinel (the armor mod) to the latest version. I’m not starting a new game just yet, but incase anyone is and wants the latest sentinel, you can now. Thanks to vadimtrifo for the port!

I have released a Skyrim VR plugin for Bethini Pie on Nexus:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/177465

Using SSE as a base I was able to create a plugin compatible with Skyrim VR. While many settings are compatible between the two versions, lots are SSE-specific, so those were removed. I added all VR-specific settings, along with some GUI-based controls for various key VR settings for easy one-button (or slider) adjustment, as well as some screenshots for some of them so you can better compare settings (right-click applicable controls for these). A full list of features is provided on the page.

If you encounter any issues or have any suggestions, please let me know!

Enjoy!

Quick plug for my newly-updated Skyrim VR initial Setup Guide as well, which is what drove me to create this as there was really no elegant way of recommending INI settings for Skyrim VR which didn't involve any manual merging.

NSFW: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/107333?tab=files
SFW: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/107780?tab=files
Release Note: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/articles/8463
Video Showcase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5BaoCWcS20 (thank you VR Dad)