Must have addons?

[TekkyTrans]

I'm still very much finding my feet on this thing; however, I don't feel like I'm ever going to shake the feeling like there's stuff I'm just not getting. Right now I feel like I'm jumping into a TV show at season 12 and wondering who the guy with the glasses is, and why does everyone hate him despite the show giving me the impression we're meant to like him?

So I just want to ask right off the bat, what are considered the "must have" addons and other bits to really get the most out of TK17?

I've got Hook 5, I don't really feel like I've scratched the surface with that yet. I downloaded a few poses, models and outfits just to see if I can install them and get them working.

Is there anything that stands out as something you wish you had earlier or can't imagine not using?

 

  

[Euphie]

1 hour ago, TekkyTrans said:

I'm still very much finding my feet on this thing; however, I don't feel like I'm ever going to shake the feeling like there's stuff I'm just not getting. Right now I feel like I'm jumping into a TV show at season 12 and wondering who the guy with the glasses is, and why does everyone hate him despite the show giving me the impression we're meant to like him?

This metaphor fits here better than you imagine... except that in our TV show, the girl wears the glasses. Everything else is correct 

 

Anyway, you probably know this is a difficult question and there may be as many answers to it as there will be people who will want to answer it... For starters, you can always see this shortlist of essentials, compiled recently by HDiddy: 

 

Besides, it's hard to say, it depends on what you like. The beauty (and the curse) of this game is that you have to spend some time searching, choosing and checking out different things. After a while, you should find that certain mod authors suit you better, whether it's because of the quality of their work or their preferred themes. You can also try to follow the voice of the people and see statistically what is downloaded the most and rated best.

One thing I advise against for sure, and it is ever popular habit of downloading everything, according to principle "the more the better"

[Morius]

This is a very difficult question. Can I propose a follow-up question to the community?

What are your 10 greatest addons you have? What are the ones you can't think of deleting them?

For me are:

1.

This one greatly expand the creation of different models with all kinds of different bodies. I can't recommend enough.
2. 

Well, I'm using less and less it, but I use them many times to have a emotional attachment, lol.

3.

The "male" version of XBody. Far less impressive, but good enought to play around.

4.

 

A big hairpack to expand your selection. I added two just in case.

5.

Those jeans are pure gold. And they are color friendly, so you can customize them ad nauseum.

6.

 

If I had to chose only one dress, this would be it.

7.

 

I like this set, and you can mix and match with other things to make different stuff.

8.

All rooms are awesome if it's the one you want to use, but this one I'm using with certain frequency to just make some poses. 
 

 

This one I use to fine tune my models.
 

9.

 

Swav pack is the begginer's toy box IMO.

 

10.

Finally, what about a install that already has a lot of things in it?

 

[d3vi0n]

Depends on what you want out of the game or where to start. You will never have "everything"

What worked for me:

1. Install Base Game + Hook 5 Extended
2. Create / Download one good male and female model
3. Download a few good Hook 5 Rooms
4. Download a few good Outfits / Clothing Items
5. Get yourself familiar with TK17 and start playing around with Pose Editor
6. Add additional stuff as needed, step by step

Your "Must Have" AddOns are those that are requirements for the models, rooms, clothing you want. Don't go overboard (add to much at once). If something goes wrong, you'll never find the cause of the problem. I would also suggest to always keep one clean base game installation at the side (only hook5 extended, without mods), in case you need it.  Once I was familiar how stuff works, I started looking into Repacks to get more content all at once, but I never blindly add stuff to my installation. I always try to understand what files are for what and organize stuff in my own way (avoid duplicates and put staff like hair addons together when it makes sense). I know its a hassle: But start slow and grow from there as you become more comfortable... There is no need to rush.

If you wanna see my addon folder at this very moment:

Spoiler

As another suggestion: I uploaded poses for two of my screenshots and including everything needed to recreate those exact screenshots in your game. You only need the base game (+hook5) as starting point. Everything else (i.e. pose, models, room, hook 5 settings, level definition) I provide as information or links.  Might be a good way to learn how TK17 works...

Spoiler

https://www.klubexile.com/files/file/5609-yasmin-burning-desire-photo-pose-static/

https://www.klubexile.com/files/file/5608-yasmin-orientexpress-photopose-static/

 

 

[Morius]

18 minutes ago, Euphie said:

One thing I advise against for sure, and it is ever popular habit of downloading everything, according to principle "the more the better"

- Gives great advice about downloading wisely. Next person gives list of packs.

[Euphie]

5 minutes ago, Morius said:

- Gives great advice about downloading wisely. Next person gives list of packs.

Packs are always attractive to beginners, there is no denying that  Your list has solid stuff from reliable people. Therefore, there is nothing from me there 

[aardy]

Don't forget the Huge Cock addon:

Spoiler

My game wouldn't be complete without it   

[MarkZappa]

6 hours ago, TekkyTrans said:

I'm still very much finding my feet on this thing; however, I don't feel like I'm ever going to shake the feeling like there's stuff I'm just not getting. Right now I feel like I'm jumping into a TV show at season 12 and wondering who the guy with the glasses is, and why does everyone hate him despite the show giving me the impression we're meant to like him?

So I just want to ask right off the bat, what are considered the "must have" addons and other bits to really get the most out of TK17?

I've got Hook 5, I don't really feel like I've scratched the surface with that yet. I downloaded a few poses, models and outfits just to see if I can install them and get them working.

Is there anything that stands out as something you wish you had earlier or can't imagine not using?

 

  

As you've been told "Must have" addons is a tricky concept as everything from a hairstyle (either regular or physix or hairworks) to a room is an addon and some people may prefer this or that because a very subjetive mental commandment says that is good and yada yada yada...

...bullshit! There's no anything such a must have addons that could become quintessential just for being there on that folder, that would be exactly like validating OCD rituals

What it can help you to understand this TV series and why we don't like the guy with the glasses even if you came late almost at the end of season 12 would be the following:

1. Pick carefully responsibly your models factory parafernalia, namely head mods, body mods (xbody highly recommended), hair mods, H5 skin layers, etc
2. Pick clothes for your models (Becareful with the aditional textures, do not stuff your active mod like your xmas turkey, that's not good, memory management it still being a issue)
3. Pick whatever you need for making a scene:

Now in point three is where the things get tricky because everything related to step three is optional and must not be there permanently into addons directory, namely:

Rooms, one or two per game session
Vehicles, not more than five per game session
Toys, same as vehicles because vehicles are toys in principle

Needless to mention that there are a few of these addons (rooms, vehicles and toys) are poorly optimized till the point they will crash your game before it makes it to Windows desktop (trust me you don't want your game to do that)

So, that's it! Serve yourself and fist fuck our little chestvault, follow these basic rules of content and I warantee the man with the glasses will not fist fuck you

But how you do it?

Oh, is simple! Make a cold storage folder on your secondary hard drive and just copy paste what you need within the game addons directory each time you must launch the game, then delete, repeat the next launch... ah, the endless circle!

PS: I assume the man with the glasses is the game?... anyways! Just be wise about what and how you put it in the game
PS2: Avoid packs, repacks, and everything that ends with *cks... it worth no shit!

[TekkyTrans]

6 hours ago, Euphie said:

Anyway, you probably know this is a difficult question and there may be as many answers to it as there will be people who will want to answer it... For starters, you can always see this shortlist of essentials, compiled recently by HDiddy: 

 

Thanks for the response, however I don't have permission to see whatever it is you linked there, which sucks because I'm now super curious as to what that list is.

Am I meant to be able to see this?

[TekkyTrans]

Wow, great replies here.

When I asked for "must have addons" I must confess I kind of forgot almost everything is considered kind of an addon, my bad.

Essentially what I meant was, is there something I should download that would give me more functionality or quality of life adjustments that would make things generally better or easier, and it seems like outside of hook and 4x it's just a case of downloading what you want to use, right?

Though I'm grateful for all the recommendations, lots of stuff I wouldn't have even thought to search for.

[Morius]

6 hours ago, Gemini Kanon said:

PS2: Avoid packs, repacks, and everything that ends with *cks... it worth no shit!
 

Ouch, but I think I deserved this. I like packs, but I also know nothing.

But Gemini have a very fair point here. Packs are all fun and games until they eat your memory up. So, carefull about that.

[demonv1]

The most "must have" addons for me are:

1. VX Fast Menus because the menus are a bit sluggish regularly.

2. 4X Texture addon because I love the high res textures

3. Dark Theme because the original menus are ugly

4. New Customizer Room because I hate the default customizer room.

 

[HDiddy]

Surprised nobody has thrown this out there, but for me the must have are those little details.  Mainly Make Up. Especially if your a H5 Skin Layer user. Unless you just like bland looking models

So Euphie's Make Up Skin Layers is pretty much required for me, without it man ohhhh man.

 

 

[Euphie]

6 hours ago, TekkyTrans said:

Thanks for the response, however I don't have permission to see whatever it is you linked there, which sucks because I'm now super curious as to what that list is.

Am I meant to be able to see this?

It should work now, sorry 

[x17]

Usually, from my POV, "essential" or "must have" can be put into one or more of these criterias : 

1. The addon technically replaces bunch of other addons and makes it "all-in-one" combination.

2. The addon beautifies the game, makes things more practical and makes things especially in PE faster and more efficient

3. The addon has exceptionally good weighting, is optimized at least sufficiently, or has exemplary texture work.

When the addon breaks itself : 

1. When its unoptimized - too many polys / not decimated , too many draw calls / too many textures , too massive textures for too little gain

2. When its too low of a quality - bad weighting, too low polycount, low res washed out textures.

 

Not all "optimization" is a "good optimization". This means that someone who reduces the quality of the asset to be really high on performance, but low quality, will make the asset pointless from my perspective. The asset should be fairly good quality to high quality (at minimum mediocre quality) and be optimized to extent to which it can while not reducing quality in any way.

Technically, I dont use 95-99 % of all vanilla assets. I see them as obsolete. It also heavily depends on user type of the game. Something made only for non-HOOK versions of the game will have different approach than only-HOOK versions.

[Smoke]

On 6/23/2022 at 5:06 AM, x17 said:

Technically, I dont use 95-99 % of all vanilla assets. I see them as obsolete. It also heavily depends on user type of the game. Something made only for non-HOOK versions of the game will have different approach than only-HOOK versions.

Well - I beg to differ. With Hook5 and its beefy shaders, you can literally give them a new life. You can do this for years - errrr we could do this for years! But in terms of quality, style, etc. Yea - there is better out there, the current stuff being made in KE is 100 times better than vanilla assets, no matter how made shaders you use lol.

[x17]

6 hours ago, Smoke said:

Well - I beg to differ. With Hook5 and its beefy shaders, you can literally give them a new life. You can do this for years - errrr we could do this for years! But in terms of quality, style, etc. Yea - there is better other there.

In general, some stuff is ok as "complementary" (or in sense of being a rare addon anyways). However, the polycount of assets should be at least sufficient to extent where blockyness isnt noticeable from middle range. And many vanilla assets are low in polycount... and with low polycount, weighting cannot be made good, either (as even the body polycount has grown above what was intended for game). But when one realizes many of these vanilla assets were made all in early 2000s (2000.-2002., but I dont recall when "official" packs were exactly made, that could be made a bit later) its still relatively ok for its time.

However... I think there would be maybe a solution, altough it would take a LOT of time and consensus from many - to take some of best assets and gradually replace, bit by bit, asset by asset, its vanilla low quality version with higher quality version. This, however, is really time consuming and would require a dedicated number of people to just work on this. I have found it more approachable just to ignore vanilla stuff...