For outdoor lighting I remember the first thing I tried was surreal lighting. I've done many things since, but seem to remember it looking pretty good in itself, once eye adaptation was removed.
You might want more of a weather mod such as obsidian or cathedral. Better textures also make the whole world easier to look at, such as smim and maybe some kind of rock texture mod (I can't even remember which one I have installed) for a place to start. Better trees and water were also high priorities for me.
Apparently it's possible to get a minimap, but I don't know about that. The only thing I have that helps navigation rather than hindering it (such as by removing the compass and the "you are here" arrow on the map) is a map that shows the roads, which makes it much easier to use.
PS everything works on linux, the only thing I've had trouble with is Nemesis and that barely works on Windows too. Beware of case-insensitive filesystem problems though. I have a script to change capitalization of every file name in a mod so that it doesn't disagree with what's already installed, if you want it.
The beginner Illusion spell, Clairvoyance, will use pathing to show you the shortest path to your closest active quest marker. It is available in the vanilla game. The merchant in the first town will sell a copy, as will some court mages.
So instead of a compass, you want GPS? The whole point of the minimap showing arrows only is for you to figure out how to get somewhere and discover alternative routes. A path sounds utterly boring.
Thanks for the recommendation. I've added Verdant and am liking it so far.
Also:
*Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods.esp
*Complementary Grass Fixes.esp
*NoGrassINCities.esp
... one or another of which probably helped make the roads stop being so ridiculously overgrown in places. I still have "3D Forest Grass" and "Skyrim Flora Overhaul" installed as well. Not really sure how they all interact, but whatever, grass is looking good.
Right, but did you check the non-plugin load order? How to do it depends which mod manager you're using I guess, or if like me you're not using one then which order you install them in. (I couldn't get mo2 running on linux back when I started.)
SMIM should go early. You can see that it's not on the list you posted here.
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