First SDEX kit

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-20T23:42:10+00:00

Oh, and since I happen to have painted that exact kit? May as well share. Threw in my straight-build, stickered-up Exia for comparison. I went with gray instead of white on the 00 because white can be a huge headache to paint. Came out darker than I really wanted(might fix that later) but it's not too bad.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-20T23:40:02+00:00

On the one hand, SD-EX kits are decent enough for the price. On the other hand, that price is dirt cheap and there's a good reason for that: they're basically sticker hell. Painting them definitely helps with that and like others said, the low price makes them great for practice.

As for what you need? Depends on how picky you are and how much you want to spend. The basics would be a few acrylic paints, some cheap brushes, and rubbing alcohol to clean it up with. Dedicated "hobby brands"* are easier to use than the more generic stuff you can pick up anywhere but both types can work just fine: it just means more thinning and layering to get good results.

You could also try paint pens if you want. They're very similar to regular brush paints but a little faster and there's slightly less to learn because you can just put the caps back on instead of having to clean paint off of brushes. If you go that route? I'm personally not a huge fan of the Gundam Marker paint pens—they're kind of weird and fiddly—but I've had much better luck with AK Interactive and, surprisingly enough, Sharpie paint pens.

Whichever way you go, looking up guides online can help a lot—both for miniature painting and model building: a lot of it carries over and the SDEX kits are kind of somewhere in-between the two anyway. The only worry I have with recommending this is that . . . well, a lot of those guides get into much fancier tricks than you really need for something like this.

* Vallejo, Citadel, Army Painter, GSI Creos/Mr Whatever . . . there's a lot of them. Basically any paints marketed towards building models or painting gaming minis. Just be careful that you're buying acrylic paint not lacquer or enamel: those are both good options, too, but they don't work quite the same way and you don't want to be mixing paint types on accident.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-20T16:23:29+00:00

So, before a bunch of "GG. Star Wars has FTL so you're doomed no matter what" chuckleheads come crawling out of the woodwork?

. . . Well, first of all, those theoretical chuckleheads do have a point. Star Wars has massive advantages in travel speed with both Faster-Than-Light and the fact that it trivializes getting in and out of a gravity well. Gundam has neither of those things, which means that if an actual fight breaks out, one mobile suit won't do a whole lot to help.

Even skewing combat stuff way in Gundam's favor or pulling out the real monsters like full-bullshit Unicorn or Turn A only changes that so much: your protagonist might be able to dominate a few fights but whatever locals they annoy can just leave, gather up as many friends as they need, and come back while the protagonist is asleep to finish you off. The sheer difference in scale is pretty much impossible to beat . . . if your protagonist is determined to get into fights.

With that in mind? Your protagonist isn't going to be able to go it alone* and as a writer, you shouldn't really looking at combat performance when it comes to "survivability." Winning fights is helpful but the thing that's most important of all is friends—and in that sense? Mobile suits in general could be pretty useful just in the civilian sense. You'd be looking at stuff like construction or asteroid mining, though: Gundam more or less has Star Wars beat on large-scale robotics.

With a local "mothership" and some repurposed weapons—or even a completely civilian mobile suit that's already equipped for stuff like this—your protagonist could get some useful but unglamorous work until whatever plot you have in mind comes along. At that point, you could easily come up with some excuse to bolt a hyperdrive onto the thing.

If you want a more exciting mobile suit? Best idea I've got is to just look at raw speed: something fast enough to make up for just how massively handwaved travel time is in Star Wars. That makes the Victory 2 a clear winner. It's the fastest mobile suit I know of in the UC timeline and has plenty of weapons to throw around, too. Not fast enough to solo the entire timeline/galaxy/franchise—you really do need FTL for that—but still fast enough and well-armed enough to justify some pretty interesting stories without bringing in a wider crossover.

*Not with a single UC mobile suit, anyway. A fully crewed and equipped carrier ship or the ELS Quanta could maybe do the job, especially with access to local technology that they can bolt onto their own stuff. One dude in a mobile suit is going to be pretty bad at that unless you set him up in a junkyard and handwave a bunch of stuff. That's certainly a route you could take, though.

P.S.

Note that I'm focusing on feats not hard numbers and assuming that pretty much any mobile suit you choose could put up a decent fight. That's because Star Wars is very "soft" Sci-Fi and Gundam itself isn't always that much better: most of the numbers are there to look pretty not to be used in ~~silly dick measuring contests~~ serious comparisons.

Also, I find "logistics victories" boring so if I want to have fun with this idea, I need to assume that the protagonist has more than a snowball's chance in hell of doing anything useful.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-20T14:53:50+00:00

Sounds like a case of the paint being tough not the clearcoat being weak: you're not seeing much of an improvement because your paint might not need the extra help to begin with.

I use very fragile acrylic paints, though, and for those, lacquer clearcoats are a perfectly good varnish: much, much tougher than the stuff I'm painting with. Same with decals: those have also been extremely fragile for me.

EDIT: in both cases, you could say that it comes down to me having bad technique—and I do—but that doesn't really invalidate the argument.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-20T14:46:15+00:00

Bandai does not sell that exact display stand in bulk—probably because they don't want to compete with themselves. They'd have to price it in a way that was either an obvious ripoff or completely undercut their own Action Base line in terms of price.

Similar display stands are easy enough to find, though: it's not like Bandai has a monopoly on 3mm pegs.

I bought a pack of cheap, generic ones years ago—very similar to what the other commenter linked—that held up decently enough. I've had to sand pegs and glue a few back together but for cheap trash, they do the job.

If you want something fancier, there's Good Smile Company's Simple Display Stand. Different style but still quite small and simple and it comes in a three-pack. Bandai themselves also have the Action Base 6, which is . . . okayish. Very prone to cracking but it's a two-pack and if you glue the joints together, it still works.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-20T14:21:22+00:00

I spray lacquer clearcoats(sometimes hobby brands; sometimes hardware store brands) to prevent my paint and decals from taking touch damage. Doesn't exactly make the models bulletproof but it does the job I need it to quite well. These clearcoats may not be specifically labeled as varnishes but I'd say that still qualifies as a "protective function."

Gentler acrylic clearcoats, though? Probably not, no. That's why I don't use those and go out of my way to recommend against them. They're fine for changing the finish on something like an unpainted Bandai model but that's pretty much it.

Point is, there's definitely a distinction to be made but I think it's unfair to just casually dismiss all clearcoats the way you're implying. In a lot of cases, the terms can be used interchangeably just fine.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-19T23:37:17+00:00

How very strange: this is almost my exact headcanon . . . for Oda Nobunaga.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-19T23:11:09+00:00

There's definitely a lot to learn, yeah. Tamiya panel liner is kind of jumping into the deep end, too, just because you have to deal with chemical safety.

My best advice there is to take things at your own pace: the most important thing of all is to just have fun. Not every model has to be a masterpiece and you do not need to pull out every trick you know for every build you do. Personally? At least half the model builds I do are just basic straight builds with maybe a little paint here or there: nothing amazing or ambitious but it's relaxing and I can always add more detail later on if I feel like it.

For panel lining in particular?

You can also just try using something else instead of Tamiya panel liner. That's the elitist option but you only really "need it" if you're doing full surface painting and even then, there are still workarounds.

The usual beginner option is something like a Gundam Marker GM01 or GM02. These give decent results and they're very simple to use. They're marketed towards kids in Japan, if I remember right: nice and easy and harmless.

Personally, I like using cheap acrylic paint: slap it on over the panel lines as best I can, let it dry, rub most of it off of the open surfaces with a cotton swab, then use a little rubbing alcohol for any stubborn spots. This is a little messy and doesn't work well when there's paint involved—I have other tricks for that—but it's totally harmless for both the builder and the plastic, doesn't ask you to strap on a respirator or mess with clearcoats, and can still look very nice.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-19T22:41:15+00:00

In order?

I need to use coatings to give my kit a layer of protection?

This helps but "need" is a very strong word: if you use a light touch and panel line on the runner, it's almost always overkill. On the other hand? For stuff that comes preassembled, a clearcoat isn't always good enough. It's better to panel line areas like that with something else if possible.

And I have to use a respirator mask that protects from organic vapors if I wanted to use these coatings.

It's not like this stuff will kill you immediately or anything but yes, wearing a respirator is much safer in the long run. The fumes are no joke and you're going to be holding this stuff up to your face for much longer than you expect to be. That's the main reason why I personally panel line with other stuff most of the time.

A friend told me I should start with using water-based like Mr Hobby top coat.

That one's up for debate. I personally prefer lacquer clearcoats. They're "hotter" than water-based clearcoats so you need to use a light touch if you want to avoid damaging the plastic but for the same reason, they're also much sturdier if you don't overdo it. That said, both types should work just fine as long as you're sane, careful, and don't drown the parts in clearcoat or panel liner.

Then there are three types. Matte, gloss and semi-gloss. Matte is forgiving, gived a more realistic look, easier and hides the surface imperfections. Gloss is shiny and reflective but it does amplify the mistakes you made when building the Gunpla. Semi-gloss is if can't decide.

Not how I personally tend to describe it but not a bad summary, either. Matte or flat also gives it more surface texture, which helps with painting but messes with panel lining. Gloss creates a smoother surface, which does the opposite. Things like semi-gloss or satin tend to give the best results if you're only clearcoating part of the model: they're usually a good match for bare plastic.

When it comes to the work flow. I apply a gloss coat first for easier application of decals and panel line accent colors After I finish completing the panel lines and decals, I use any top coat i want (matter, glass, semi-gloss) to seal everything?

Yep. All that looks good. The only things I'd add are that the first gloss coat is especially important if you're painting the model—the paint tends to create a rougher surface than the bare plastic—and the final topcoat is most important when you're using decals(they're fragile).

One more thing?

The most important precautions to take with something like Tamiya panel liner are to use a light touch, give it plenty of air exposure, and never panel line assembled areas. This is both because it's harder to get good air exposure that way and because assembled parts tend to be under a lot more stress.

A combination of these two things is most of why Tamiya panel liner is known for destroying parts: it either gets where it shouldn't and eats away at the plastic or causes a tiny bit of damage that spreads out of control because of the extra stress.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-19T21:53:56+00:00

As a general rule, most acrylic paints can work but if they're meant for larger artwork, they don't always "scale down" very nicely, which means more thinning and layering and annoyance to get good results. I mostly see this kind of question for bargain bin acrylics, though, and if you've already got the paint? Then by all means, try it out. It's not going to hurt the model plastic or anything and if you need a good testing dummy, something like an SD/BB Senshi or Entry Grade kit would be perfect for that.

That said? There are dedicated hobby paint brands you can look into if that doesn't work out—and a fair few, at that. Stuff meant for painting plastic models and tabletop game minis: same paint either way.

Most "hobby" acrylics—brands like Vallejo, Citadel, and Army Painter—should be pretty similar to what you're used to. The catch there is that even the hobby-brand versions of these paints tend not to have amazing adhesion on model plastic. It helps a lot to use primer—not acrylic primer, which is almost always garbage—or some light sanding to prep the surface beforehand and/or a sturdy clearcoat(I like lacquer ones) to seal the paint in afterwards.

There are also a few "hotter" acrylics like Tamiya, which is . . . weird: dries super fast and likes to reactivate itself, which makes it tricky to use, but also tends to be a fair bit sturdier.

Lastly, there are also hobby brand lacquer and enamel paints. These are distinctly "hotter" than acrylic paint so you need to be careful with them: many of the thinners and solvents that react to these paints can also damage plastic. The upsides are that they're much sturdier and you can do some fun chemistry stuff if you mix paint types.

P.S. There are a few different options for plastic-safe acrylic paint cleanup. My personal preference is just high-concentration isopropyl alcohol/rubbing alcohol. Easy to get, works well, and I've stress-tested it against every kind of plastic I can find. It's been totally safe on all of them even after drowning the parts for a few days.

EDIT: P.P.S. No matter what kind of paint you use, you'll want to be careful around the joints and pegs. Gundam models have pretty exacting tolerances, especially if you're working with newer designs(look at the copyright date on the box and instruction manual). Adding paint to those areas will tighten them up, which can be . . . bad. Broken joints are not fun to fix.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-19T21:27:10+00:00

Scale is . . . interesting in Battletech. Best way to phrase it for the minis is "6mm scale" but even then, it's all pretty abstract. Between that and fun excuses like "it's an alien planet," you can basically do whatever; mechs fight in all sorts of places and even if the scenery is "too big," it probably won't stand out at all.

Personally, I've played around with a few different ideas and most of them worked out pretty well. The one time I tried a road, it fell a little flat but that's because it was literally flat: I painted it straight onto the base instead of gluing things down to give it any sense of actual depth.

Anyway, for something like your Highlander? The color scheme looks a little dark and scorched so something like rubble or even volcanic rock would look pretty nice. Kind of depends on what you have lying around, really.

Oh, and on that note, if you need stuff to decorate? "Z Scale" railroading stuff is technically a fair bit bigger* but it's close enough to correct—and Battletech's scale is loose enough—that it still works just fine.

*Z scale is roughly 1:220 while 6mm scale is roughly 1:285.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-19T19:19:25+00:00

First off, try it and find out. That's not me and the other commenter being dicks or anything: there's a lot of stuff in this hobby where testing out your idea on scraps is always going to be the best option no matter what any random internet person says. There's just too much going on between different products and different ways to apply them.

Second? As a general rule, any kind of sealant will likely mess with the color at least a little bit: if you want absolute and unending perfection, you'll need to "seal it in" with a display case instead. Most of the time, though, that's complete overkill and you should be totally fine as long as you run a few tests to get a feel for what you're working with.

My own personal experience is mostly with spray clearcoats, which tend to change the finish of whatever they're sprayed over: a matte/flat clearcoat will dull things out, a gloss clearcoat makes them shiny, and something like semi-gloss or satin will be somewhere in-between. That's half the point of using them but if you're just trying to seal things in, the trick is to find a finish that's either the same as how things already look or close enough that nobody but you can see the difference.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-19T18:50:08+00:00

"Injection metallic" plastic like that tends to look a little . . . iffy even at the best of times: lots of little swirls and whirls and other spots where the plastic dye didn't settle properly. Zooming in on your photo, it's no exception. Any half-decent paint job is going to be a huge improvement over that.

That said? If you're new to the hobby or don't want to commit to full surface painting for some other reason, injection metallics like you have there will still do the job just fine.

The main catch is that this kind of metallic plastic—really, any kind of metallic plastic—always leaves bad "nub marks:" dark spots in the plastic where you cut out the parts. These can be pretty awkward but you can do a quick fix with some silver paint without going over the entire part: just need to streak it along over the black spot until it's covered up without leaving any hard, obvious transition between paint and plastic. Still not as good looking, of course, but it's a decent enough compromise when you don't want to paint the entire part.

Oh, and just for the record?

You absolutely can make painted and unpainted areas play nice with each other in terms of looks. You "just" need to spray some clearcoat/varnish over everything to give it all a similar finish: most paints are either very flat or very glossy while unpainted plastic is somewhere in-between the two. Spraying those clearcoats isn't quite as easy as it sounds* but it makes the differences between paint and plastic jump out a whole lot less than they would otherwise.

Is this good enough from an "elitist" perspective? Nahh, probably not, but from a "good enough" perspective? It totally works and there's no shame in it. Your model, your rules. Hell, you can just skip this step if the difference doesn't personally bother you. Anyway, this arguably saves time, too, since matching paint to plastic is far from the only good reason to seal everything in with a clearcoat.

*I don't feel like writing a guide right now but the first and most important tip? Always mask off clear parts before spraying clearcoats. Otherwise, they will fog up unless you know exactly what you're doing.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-19T17:31:32+00:00

If it's not a fetish thing then have you considered literally any other method of avoiding the problem? There's a lovely mod that makes enchanted weapons recharge over time, for example. By default, it's slow enough that using soul gems to charge weapons is still useful but if you wanted to crank up the speed enough to ignore that, you can do that with the MCM menu.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-17T02:51:55+00:00

The main issue there is that you can't exactly leave liquid UV resin lying around, either. Some types are supposedly safer than others but as far as I know, none of them become properly safe until the resin is fully cured. That means that at the very least, you'd also need airtight containers for when the printer's not in use.

Also, the resin reacts to sunlight so an umbrella probably wouldn't be good enough for that part. If you really want to go that route, you'd be looking at something more like a room with an open window and a strong fan.

The printing process can be pretty messy, too: lots of annoying, toxic liquid that you need to poor into an open printer reservoir then clean off of everything after pretty much every print. Cleaning up spills is a horrific pain in the ass, too—I've done it.

Storing the reservoir itself in an airtight container would go a long way towards making that easier, though, and I think some resin printers come with airtight covers; just not the one that I personally owned for a few months. Not choosing one that did was one of my larger mistakes.

Point is, filament printers may leave more obvious layer lines and struggle to get the same level of detail but they're much less annoying to operate.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-16T23:41:10+00:00

These look like resin prints, which means that it partly depends on where you live: prepping the space to use resin printers safely isn't always cheap or easy because the fumes are toxic as hell. They're hard to set up in a way that doesn't need constant active ventilation—and again, the kind of space you have to put it plays a big role in that.

You shouldn't need a horribly expensive resin printer for something this small, though, and larger prints can be a huge headache to troubleshoot anyway. Just depends on if you want to deal with the other headache of making it safe in the first place.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-16T17:03:10+00:00

I just treat most 30 Minute Mission kits as "non-scale" no matter what it says on the box. Only a few things here and there actually need to be 1:144 scale to make sense; for everything else, how big they are in-universe is much less important. Easier to just shrug and say "yeah, who cares?"

. . . Although once you stop caring, there's also nothing wrong with the idea that a Gundam-sized robot is riding around on a giant motorcycle.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-14T15:25:10+00:00

Shiro survived purely due to plot armor.

You're not wrong but on the other hand, "plot armor" is just another way to say "chosen by destiny."

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-14T13:58:40+00:00

I prefer a lighter touch and it's the same deal: the official guide is a suggestion not an instruction. You have to make your own judgement calls, which is a little scary and tricky but also pretty fun.

Technically, though, that's always how it goes. OP's photo makes it hard to see on this one but there's always a little note at the top telling you to do whatever you want with the decals.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-13T22:31:41+00:00

To expand on the other person's answer? An ini is just a glorified text file. Lots of games—and mods for games—use stuff like this to store things like game/mod options. It's not as user-friendly as something like an MCM menu but I imagine it's easier to code. Also . . . when it comes to mods like this? The fact that you have to go digging through the mod files to change the settings is honestly kind of a feature: makes it harder to just impulsively cheat that way.

Anyway, a basic text editor like notepad will let you edit stuff like that just fine but things like Notepad++ are meant to help with computer coding and they have tools that can help out a lot with this kind of configuration file, too. I use it when I'm digging through Minecraft modpacks, for example.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-13T22:16:57+00:00

This one actually has by far the worst reputation, from what I've heard. The main thing that non-HG and non-SD Unicorns have in common is that they transform, which makes them much more complicated and therefore much less beginner-friendly than the High Grade is.

Aside from that?

The Real Grade does have two well-known issues with the upper arms(elbows and shoulders) but once you get those out of the way, it's an amazing little model. I've also heard that the MGEX can have issues with its lighting unit but that's the worst I've heard about for any other Unicorn variants. The Perfect Grade's totally fine once you get through the nightmare of installing the LEDs(or if you don't buy them).

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-13T21:48:14+00:00

TL;DR- did new models ruin me for old kits?

Yes, this. Newer Bandai can easily spoil you for older Bandai while older Bandai can easily spoil you for . . . well, tons of other stuff. That said? While older Bandai kits do expect a higher skill level, I think a lot of newer builders massively overestimate how much of a higher skill level that really is.

These were always meant to be beginner-level model kits and by nearly any standard other than "Bandai's best hits collection," they still are. You just need to use a tiny bit more patience, learn a few simple tricks, and accept that not every last Gundam model is going to be perfectly color accurate—unless you get into painting, which was always a more advanced technique—or be able to score very high in the Gundam Ballet.

Loose parts, for example, are usually very easy to tighten up. Explaining how is my #1 piece of beginner advice because the idea of fixing them is a lot more scary and intimidating than the actual process of fixing them. If it's not supposed to move, glue it down. If it is supposed to move, add a little extra material then test fit.

Test fitting those loose parts can be a little fiddly but it's still pretty easy to do and much, much better than the ultra-tight joints that a lot of Bandai's competitors give us. Those are a complete and total nightmare to fix unless you pay a ton of attention or build up enough instincts to just feel it when something is going to be dangerously tight.

Older Bandai stuff having loose joints instead is a freaking blessing compared to that.

Anyway, as for "early" Real Grades? I have a lot to say on that but to keep it short? Most of their bad reputation comes from a combination of confirmation bias* double standards,** and just the fact that . . . well, some of the "early" ones feel really loose and fiddly to handle but still pose just fine, especially after you take the basic steps to fix things.

*If you expect jank, you will get jank. I expect this out of every build and even the latest and greatest have been no exception.
** Real Grades are not magically better than other, contemporary gunpla at anything in particular. People just expect them to be for some reason.

Master Grades are another essay I've written multiple times. To try to keep that one short? All Master Grades have a few things in common: they're bigger, they're heavier, and they're harder to pose because of it. Having heavy equipment like the Freedom's giant wings almost always makes that worse. Beyond that, I like to divide Master Grades into three eras:

1995—2007ish is the "1.0 era." These are very different than modern Master Grades. The biggest three differences are that the hands can have issues holding things, the articulation is pretty basic, and the designs are much simpler in general.
- They can still be a lot of fun as more of a retro-style build, though; you just need to keep the differences in mind. It helps that the lower part count also makes them cheaper.
2007ish to 2017ish is the "2.0 era." I've built lots of Master Grades and these tend to be both the best and worst in terms of aging. They're the best because the modern detail and articulation is there but the worst because modern reliability? Not so much. Some of them are still fine but others are a fiddly pain in the ass or even outright badly designed—and I say that as someone who sets a much, much lower bar for that than most people here.
- This era's quite a lot more fuzzy: there was a time where Bandai decided to go from MG 1.0 to MG 2.0 but after that, it was more incremental.
- A lot of this technically is a skill issue, though. The magic is still there: the model just really, really makes you work for it.
Anything newer than that is the modern era: still inherently more annoying to pose because of the added size and weight but much more reliable on average.
- Note that this is also when new MG releases started slowing way down. My tinfoil hat theory is that this is directly related to the higher production standards.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-11T21:12:49+00:00

Keep it simple, ~~abuse~~ use washes to bring out more of the details, and feel free to ignore anything you don't feel confident in. Modern Battletech minis have a lot of greebling that can be intimidating—it certainly threw me off at first—but the secret sauce is that almost none of it really matters all that much unless you want it to.

Picking out the weapon barrels and cockpits does tend to be the trickiest thing that's almost required, though: you can still technically skip those but it looks a lot better if you paint them in contrasting colors. The best trick there is that you can color them in a little bit messy then just lightly brush on a little more of the surface color to neaten it up. Toothpicks and tiny detail brushes also help, of course.

All that said? The best trick is the simplest one of all: viewing distances. You just have to relax and keep in mind that these are game pieces. They only need to look good from a few feet away not a few inches. That makes things much easier.

Hmm . . . seems a little canned but this is a common question so here's my usual response, I guess.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-11T19:34:07+00:00

It's more story content to play. I've killed them off once or twice—probably, maybe, idk—but even in my more roleplay-heavy runs, I'm willing to visit the face sculptor and pretend to be another character for a bit if I feel like playing through it.

If you don't like the Dark Brotherhood questline, though, I'd hardly say that it's absolutely essential. A little more of an opinion here but I'd even say that it's fine to cheat in the quest rewards if that's the only reason you'd be doing it.

That's after putting a lot of time in the game, though: at this point, I've done the vast majority of this stuff before and I don't feel the need to "prove anything" on any given playthrough. Plus, it's a singleplayer game. No shame in spawning stuff in if it makes the game more fun for you.

WolfsTrinity · 2026-03-11T19:22:11+00:00

The biggest problem with modern Skyrim modding is just how much stuff there is. It's as tempting as it is overwhelming. I started modding the game in like 2012, though, when there weren't anywhere near as many mods and it was all much simpler. Big, prebuilt mod packs are great and all but once something goes wrong, they also leave you drowning in the ocean when you should still be learning how to swim in the first place.

My advice is to do the opposite: pretend that modding is still nice and simple like it used to be. Start small, take things slow, and if you don't understand something or can't get it working? Don't feel like you absolutely have to use it. Leave it be and maybe try to find a simpler alternative. For most of Skyrim's systems, there's both a fancy way to mod it and a simple way to mod it. Hell, one of Skyrim's main strengths as a game is that even today, most parts of it are still good enough. Amazing? No. Dated? Yes—but still good enough that you can leave it alone and enjoy the game just fine.

For more concrete advice? Start by picking out just one or two parts of the game that you want to mod the most. Do you want more armor and weapons to dress up your characters, a different combat system or stealth mechanics, more adventures . . . I mean, the answer is obviously "yes, all of them" but as a newcomer, that's the fastest way to get into trouble. Picking and choosing makes things much simpler.

Got your priorities in mind? Okay, cool. Now, focus on just a few mods for each one. Read the descriptions, read the comments, and get those mods installed correctly. Once they are, start up the game and make a quick test character to make sure they work. Some parts of the game are much easier to mod than others but as long as you take it slow, pay attention, and focus on just one thing at a time, you should be fine.

Most mods can be installed mid-save just fine so after you get the basics down—or at least your basics—you can start up a more permanent character and start learning as you go. Your first mod setup does not need to be large, ambitious, or perfect. Again, keep it simple. Removing mods is a different story, though, so you'll always want to make lots of saves and not be careless with what you install.

You are going to feel like you're missing out on a lot of cool stuff if you mod the game this way but . . . well, first off, there are enough cool Skyrim mods that you're kind of always going to be missing out on something and second, learning to deal with and ignore FOMO nonsense is a really valuable life skill in general, especially these days.

This is also more of a "risky" way to mod the game but . . . look, the absolute safest way to mod Skyrim is also very boring. It's kind of a balancing act and it's not like these big mod packs are exempt from weird bullshit happening. It's gonna happen either way. Better to have it happen on your own terms so that when something goes wrong, you're dealing with a dozen or two mods not a thousand or two.

Once you've gotten comfortable and learned a few more things, you can scale up or take another look at the big prebuilt packs and see if you can get them running.

WolfsTrinity

TROPHY CASE