Slidikins’ Strenuous Skyrim (SSS) is an addon for The Phoenix Flavour (TPF), a wonderfully curated modding guide for The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Special Edition. In order to use the Installation Guide you’ll first need to install TPF. Even though TPF's manual guide is no longer supported, I wrote this assuming you’ve read TPF and understand the tools it has included.
What to expect from The Phoenix Flavour:
Copied from the guide
- A Better Skyrim: The guide includes hundreds of mods across several dozen categories, all carefully selected to fit [Phoenix’s] vision of a lore-friendly, improved but not radically changed Skyrim. The Phoenix Flavour strives to provide a solid upgrade of the vanilla experience with modern visuals and rebalanced gameplay.
- Custom Files and Patches: Both the final patch as well as some patches and plugin replacers installed during the mod setup have been made specifically for the guide by Umgak and [Phoenix]. They ensure compatibility as well as consistency between all included mods.
- Performance: The Phoenix Flavour was created for gameplay rather than screen-archery and will for most people deliver solid framerates on a 1080p monitor resolution. For higher resolutions, better hardware is required. Through INI changes, reasonable texture resolutions, a performance-friendly grass overhaul as well as a skippable ENB section and the choice to use lower settings in DynDOLOD, you can tweak your game until you reach a stable framerate.
- Stability: Skyrim SE itself is already very stable compared to Classic Skyrim. You may still experience the occasional freeze or crash, but they will be very rare (perhaps once every 20 to 30 hours). These happen in Vanilla and they will happen in TPF.
Key differences between SSS and base TPF:
- Survival Mode: I use Survival from the Creation Club, meaning you’ll need to eat, sleep, and keep warm among other changes. More information from UESP.net.
- Strict Level Cap: Maximum level is 50 with a total of 55 perk points granted. Use them wisely. On a side note, skills also can not be made Legendary.
- Reduced HUD: With all of my interface presets, your HUD will be minimized, limiting on-screen information. You’ll no longer see enemy information or active effects while in combat, for example.
- Equipment Upkeep: Weapon and armor quality degrades with use and needs to be maintained through tempering. If you’re not trained in the crafting skills, you can commission what you need through Honed Metal, but even then some options are unavailable through the NPCs.
- Preparedness Rewarded: The diminished health regen will dwindle supplies if you’re hurt frequently. Long fights are not your friend. Bringing the right tools for the job, along with accounting for Resistances and Weaknesses, will go a long way towards preventing stalls in your adventures.