Today I picked up Skyrim for PC. I already have the game on X360, but since I recently got a new monster computer I figured I'd jump back into Skyrim the way it was meant to be played: with loads and loads of mods!

Problem is that A) I have no idea how to run/install mods, and B) I have no idea where to even start looking. What am I looking for? Pretty much any mod you can recommend to me, the ones you consider essential to enhance the gameplay and especially the looks of Skyrim. I got inspired by that Skyrim video circling around a few days ago, so could someone with more experience help me get started on this? Keep in mind that at this point I only have the core game installed on Steam. I haven't downloaded any modding tools (do I even need any?), haven't downloaded the hi-res pack from Steam (should I do that?), or anything else.

Thanks!

A) Installing regular mods are pretty simple for the most part. You have the steam workshop where subscribing to mods will automatically download them. Or you go to something like SkyrimNexus and download mods that aren't on the Steam Workshop and you simply extract and move the files to the Skyrim Data Folder (<Your Steam install directory>/steamapps/common/skyrim/data/). For either option, you load the launcher and go to the mods option to make sure all the mods you want are activated. They are all organised into a list.

B) Mentioned it already, but Steam Workshop and SkyrimNexus are a good starting point to find plenty of mods you may like. Just some forewarning about SkyrimNexus though - there is adult content (usually mods based around a nude body figure like armour mods for women) in there which I believe you can filter out with account settings. You do need to make a free account to download stuff greater than 2MB. Steam Workshop is preferred if you don't want to go through that stuff to find some good mods.

Some of the very complex mods that add extra methods to beautify the graphics themselves like ENB are beyond the traditional mods and require seperate instructions to setup right. They aren't that difficult but I'd rather only tell you about other mods for now as I haven't dived into these mods yet. The most I've dived into were mods that required the Skyrim Script Extender. You will find some mods that will require it so ignore them when you first start out. They will be cool later on when you get more confident with mods as they allow for more interesting possibilities like improving the UI in very custom ways.

Modded skyrim can look beautiful: http://imgur.com/a/CT8ZX

Those screenshots were made by this guy who has links to guides and some of the mods he uses:

http://www.asot.es/2001/09/skyrim-mods.html

BTW I just grabbed all this from a reddit thread from yesterday, you might wanna check it out as it has loads more info:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/13g558/so_modded_skyrim_looks_pretty_good/

@ShiftyMagician: Didn't realize there was Steam Workshop for this game, thanks for proving what an idiot I am! :D

Guessing that's a good place to start with, thanks for the tip!

the mods I use are more game play then adding a car or better weapons, i go for the no fast travel mod, which as the title implies no using fast travel so running or riding a horse everywhere,

the sleep and hunger mod you have to eat drink and sleep to keep your energy up so if your hungry or haven't slept you don't do as much damage

@Niall_Sg1: Awesome. Found this list on Reddit, will check it out when I get home later today. :)