Skyrim modders have yet again managed to pull off something remarkable. You know how creating patches to ensure two mods work together smoothly’s long been something that requires firing up the likes of the creation kit or xEdit? Well, thanks to a new mod dubbed the in-game patcher, it’s possible to resolve issues like that simply by wandering up to the location as the Dragonborn and editing the very make-up of the world.
See a rock clipping through a house because you’ve downloaded a couple of works that give the same bit of Whiterun a makeover? Just mosey over, grab the misbehaving mineral, and either move it elsewhere or delete it. You’ll have make sure you’ve not messed up anything else in the process before you save your changes, but assuming all the NPCs still have their own heads, you’ve got your own patch.
The modder behind this in-game patcher is RavenKZP, whose previous projects include some equally advanced stuff. Adding seasons to the new areas added to the RPG by the likes of Beyond Skyrim: Bruma and a mechanic that makes food go mouldy if you keep it in your pockets too long. They’ve also made a quest involving Morrowind’s Uncle Sweetshare, which earns them a million extra points in my book.
Anyway, enough of me curiously nerding out. This in-game patcher, originally spotted by TheGamer, is a plugin for Skyrim: Special edition’s script extender. Once it’s installed, you enter and exit a patching mode by opening and closing the game’s console, where you typically enter the likes of spawn commands.
Once open, you select objects as you usually would in the console, and can move, rotate, scale, or remove them as you see fit. Markers, such as spawn points and those which control the likes of idles, furniture interactions, and which way water flows can also be manipulated in the same fashion. You can also add keywords to items if you’re so inclined. There are a bunch of quick YouTube tutorials under the mod page’s video tab to help you get started.
Watch on YouTube
RavenKZP wrote that their creation can also be used simply to rejig the world clutter to your liking or do a bit of redecorating of houses, cities and the like, which’ll probably be what I try first if I give it a whirl. Once you’ve made your tweaks, they can be saved as “BOS/KID patches so they persist across game sessions” and shared with others in ini file form. The modder’s also got plans to keep expanding what their work can do going forwards, including adding the ability to edit multiple objects at once.
As you might imagine given what it pulls off, the in-game patcher does come with a pretty chunky list of requirements – the Skyrim script extender, Address Library for SKSE Plugins, Object Manipulation Overhaul, SKSE Menu Framework, SkyPrompt, Base Object Swapper, Keyword Item Distributor, and Debug Menu. Jaxonz Positioner Converter Remastered and More Informative Console are optional extras.
