For the Explorer in you

I was following a Skyrim thread on /v/ which quickly degenerated into how Bethesda are dumbing down the game. It eventually became a dispute over the compass, or "Magical Compass", that show undiscovered location and a green arrow pointing in the right direction.
An anon linked to a mod that supposedly remove the compass altogether. I had a mod that did that a while ago, but I uninstalled it because It removed the compass completely and I like knowing what direction I'm heading to. Another anon was complaining, almost crying even, that It was impossible to complete quests without the compass because it removes the markers on the map, which is false, at least for the mod I used. I Installed the mod back to prove him it was still possible to use the map and It got me thinking that I still wish I could remove the icons and arrow from the compass but keep the actual compass.
After about two hours of searching in xml files, comparing two mods and Darnui and trying many different things (I'm very bad with scripts) I finally found out how to get the exact result I wanted.

Turns out that only blanking a little part of the code completely remove icons from the compass. It also removes the quest direction arrow and the map is left untouched so I can still check on it to see where I have to go without having to follow the green arrow like a drone. It also make exploration a lot better, Since I have to actually pay attention to what is ahead instead of just walking toward an icon.


Depending of the UI you use, you will have to look into:
Data\menus\main\hud_main_menu.xml
OR into:
Data\menus\prefabs\hud_compass.xml

Open them with Note pad and make sure you make a back up copy of the file before modifying it.


Find the part of code:

<_filename_1> Menus\Icons\Map\map_icons_all.dds </_filename_1>    <!-- all map markers -->

<_filename_2> Menus\HUD\hud_compass_arrows.dds </_filename_2>  <!-- quest marker icon -->

<_filename_3> Menus\HUD\hud_compass_arrows.dds </_filename_3>  <!-- marker icon -->

<_filename_4> Menus\HUD\cc_world_map_arrow_icon.dds</_filename_4>  <!-- you are here icon -->

And add <!-- in front of each lines like this:

<!--<_filename_1> Menus\Icons\Map\map_icons_all.dds </_filename_1> <!-- all map markers -->

<!--<_filename_2> Menus\HUD\hud_compass_arrows.dds </_filename_2> <!-- quest marker icon -->

<!--<_filename_3> Menus\HUD\hud_compass_arrows.dds </_filename_3> <!-- marker icon -->

<!--<_filename_4> Menus\HUD\cc_world_map_arrow_icon.dds</_filename_4> <!-- you are here icon -->

You are now ready for fun exploration time!

EDIT: It would seems that if you have the default DarnUI, You can do that even more easily and better.  Go to Data\Menus\Prefabs\Darn\ and open the file hudmainmenu_config.xml
CTRL-F to find Compass and modify these lines:

<_cshow_questtarget> 0 </_cshow_questtarget>

<_cshow_playermarker> 0 </_cshow_playermarker>

<_cshow_discovered> 0 </_cshow_discovered>

<_cshow_known> 0 </_cshow_known>

Now, I do not know what is the difference between the Known and Discovered but you can try 1 of each and see if you can keep the known location showing on your compass. Sadly with the compass I use, it doesn't seems to work.