Survival mode - Omni-guides/Tuxborn GitHub Wiki

How to launch Survival Mode

Our load order does not prompt you at the beginning of your game about whether you want to turn on Survival Mode, but that doesn't mean it's not available! The option to turn it on is still available in the main game settings, the same as in the vanilla Anniversary Edition.

If you forget to turn on Survival Mode immediately as soon as you launch your playthrough, it should be safe for you to do so at any time. Take note, depending on what Alternate Start option you choose in chargen, it might be specifically wise to not turn on Survival Mode immediately! See the Shipwrecked Off the Coast section of the Starting recommendations for character generation page for details.

What mods we use that impact Survival Mode

The following mods are the ones of most interest in our load order for a Survival Mode run:

Read up on these if you want some information in advance to plan your Survival Mode run.

‼️ IMPORTANT WARNING ABOUT FAST TRAVEL ‼️

Fast travel is not turned off by default in Survival Mode in our load order. It is possible to turn it off, in the appropriate INI file.

However, we very strongly recommend you do not turn off fast travel. If you do, it will break the Dev Aveza in Legacy of the Dragonborn, which relies on fast travel being active in order to work. This is not an issue Tuxborn can fix, since it's a conflict of functionality between how LOTD handles the airship, and how Survival Mode Improved handles turning off fast travel.

If and only if you don't actually care about running LOTD in general or getting the Dev Aveza in particular, and you do care about having fast travel explicitly disabled, then the INI file you want is SurvivalModeImproved.ini under "Tuxborn - Settings". You can edit it in MO2 directly, or, edit it from your command line or file explorer at the following path:

/mods/Tuxborn - Settings/SKSE/Plugins/SurvivalModeImproved.ini

Inside that file, the very first option is the one that toggles fast travel:

bDisableFastTravel=0

But again: DO NOT TOUCH THIS SETTING IF YOU WANT THE DEV AVEZA TO WORK.

How to handle your travel without disabling fast travel

Not disabling fast travel does present a problem for any players who might really want to run a no-fast-travel playthrough, we know! First and foremost, it does mean you'll need to simply develop the habit of not launching fast travel on your own.

But fortunately, our load order does include some additional options to travel around the map, and to make doing so in Survival Mode less onerous. These options include:

  • Carriage drivers available in the smaller holds as well as the larger cities
  • Ferryboat operators on the largest bodies of water (Lake Honrich, Lake Ilinalta, Sea of Ghosts, etc.)
  • Gjalund Salt-Sage's ship the Northern Maiden is still available to take you to Solstheim
  • The Dev Aveza and the AHO, both of which not only serve as in-character means of transport, but also as mobile player homes, which could be hugely beneficial in a Survival Mode run
  • In Legacy of the Dragonborn, one of the customization options you can buy for the Safehouse is a Teleporter that will let you immediately teleport to any other city in Skyrim besides Solitude
  • Major DLC-sized mods that take you out of the main Skyrim worldspace generally will have in-character means to reach them:
    • Ships at the Solitude Docks (Wyrmstooth, Midwood Isle)
    • Wagons you can take to get to your target location (Moonpath to Elsweyr, Beyond Reach)
    • Portal (such as with Gray Cowl of Nocturnal)
    • Transport machine to go back and forth between Clockwork Castle and major Skyrim locations, once you finish the Clockwork mod

Camping in Survival Mode

Tuxborn does not include a standalone camping mod, but we do have a couple of options to consider if you want to plan to camp in Survival Mode, especially if you're doing a no-fast-travel run and you haven't acquired either the airship or the AHO yet.

AE Camping

The Camping content of the Anniversary Edition is still available. This lets you create a set of Camping Supplies at any forge, with a piece of leather and three pieces of firewood. Using any set of Camping Supplies will create a small campsite for you, including a campfire, a crate to sit on, and a lean-to with a bedroll to sleep in.

However, there are three things to be aware of when making Camping Supplies.

  1. Each set of Camping Supplies is good for only one use. You will have to keep making new ones to create different places to camp.
  2. A camp made with Camping Supplies will persist until you either explicitly break camp, or use a different set of Camping Supplies to camp someplace else, in which case your previous camp will despawn.
  3. Camping Supplies are heavy. Be mindful of this in Survival Mode since your carry weight will be nerfed.

Rains' Shelter

Rains' Shelter is the superior choice for camping, with or without Survival Mode active. This is an item available via Legacy of the Dragonborn, and you don't even have to launch LOTD beforehand if you know where to look.

See this section of the Frequently Asked Questions: Legacy of the Dragonborn page for details.