Kelmych

2. The purpose of both merging plugins and the bashed patch are to reduce the number of plugins used. Wrye Bash/Flash has some logic which allow it to handle a small set of (but not all) conflict types better than a merged patch. Both Mator's Merge Patch plugin and Wrye Bash/Flash have a lot of logic to handle different situations, but there are still many limitations. 3. LOOT automatically checks for and downloads updates to masterlist.yaml, but remember that this file is manually created by the LOOT team based on inputs from mod users. You can always click the icon in LOOT for it to check again for updates. There is a brief discussion, and an external reference, of FormIDs in this advanced guide. Mator's Merged Plugin can handle merges where there are no conflicts between Navmesh entries. In simple cases the Creation Kit <shudder> can be used to resolve simple conflicts between Navmesh entries (KeithinHanoi described this in some posts a while ago). You might also want to read some of the discussion on STEP and the articles in the Nexus page for the Immersive Citizens mod concerning navmeshes; some of these discussions cover more complex situations. Changing the entries in master files isn't a good practice, especially since the master files can be updated and the changes are lost and need to be recreated. I build one fairly small patch file (or sometimes a few) with the changes I want, making notes on what I did so the next time one of the master files is updated I know what to check for. ElminsterAU (the author of xEdit) suggests building a set of small compatibility patches, each for a few mods, and then merging these into one (or more) overall compatibility patches (the guide mentioned above has a reference to this). These patches load last, usually after but sometimes just before the bashed patch. The bashed patch can merge entries in subrecords for FormIDs and Leveled Lists, which would otherwise need to be done manually in the small personal patch so sometimes I let the bashed patch do this. A perhaps more elegant way to create the compatibility patches would be to separate the FormID/Leveled List subrecord entries into a patch which loads before the bashed patch (and is then merged by the bashed patch), with the rest of the patch records merged into a separate patch (or patches) that load after the bashed patch.

At the top left of MO click the icon with tools, then check the box next to Advanced. This will allow you to set the locations for the download and mods directories. I have an SSD so I have the downloads directory on an HDD and mods directory on the SSD. It's not a good idea to delete individual files such as textures from a mod. It's possible the file will be needed in a different profile in MO; moreover, over time the priority order of mods in a profile can change. If all the files in a mod aren't used you might want to uninstall the mod if you don't expect to use the mod and it isn't used in other MO profiles.

I was hoping that others would look at the indicators I built and we could have a discussion of some standards for at least some of the ones I added. I feel indicators could be used to make the guides provide more information without adding a lot of space in the guide. I have been suggesting the addition of the Low/Medium/High resolution information (as well as the other ones I used) to the main STEP guide for several years. By the way, I used the same indicator for Core, as an example, as was used in the STEP guide. It would be useful if most of the indicators were standardized, while maintaining the ability to use custom ones when needed.

The additions for the changes in several posts will be added to the guide in the next update. Thanks for these Himself. The last time I did a small test comparing a few clutter objects across MG's Neat Clutter, NMC, and some other mods I felt that some of the textures in MG's Neat Clutter were too clean. To me, the rug in the screenshots is an example of this. However, in some of the other screenshots MG's Neat Clutter textures look as good or better than those in the other mods while remaining lore friendly (comparable to the wear and dirt in vanilla, or to what would be expected after years of use in the wasteland).

The FO3 guide makes extensive use of the indicator templates that DoubleYou created (thanks!). The text colors, background colors, and text were modified to create indicators for: Core and OptionalLowRes, MedRes, and HighRes (texture and model resolution)Cleaning (with xEdit)Optimize (DDSopt would be useful for the textures)They seem like efficient ways to convey information about a mod without having to add a lot of detail.

It's best to not run DDSopt through MO. Optimize textures and then move the resulting loose files into the download folder for MO or directly into the mods folder.

What version of optimized textures did you use? The HRDLC contains duplicate copies of all the textures from the 3 DLC that are useful to optimize, and if these copies are left in the HRDLC when it is optimized there is no need to optimize any of the textures from the 3 DLC as mentioned in the Skyrim DDSopt Quickstart guide,

I'm sorry to hear this, but thanks for all the work you put into creating a great pack. I expect that even with using Immersive Citizens that I'll be able to use many of the mods you selected and tested. The STEP patch hasn't really been needed for a while, by the way, which can be seen by looking at it in TES5Edit. I mentioned it a while ago in this thread.

Typically these BSAs don't need to be extracted.

I had a lot of problems with the Gaming Evolved app when I let the installer include it a while ago. It took me a while to determine that it was the cause of some significant problems I had after the updated installation.

If you are using STEP core or Extended the premade STEP Optimized Vanilla Textures can simplify getting optimized vanilla textures. ​MO will handle the files from this. The QuickStart guide for Skyrim was updated to make using the NOSORT batch file clearer.

I went through the Wasteland Patch Collection and added instructions in the guide for installing the relevant patches. The patches in this mod, especially the large patch for this guide, can simplify a lot of compatibility issues especially if the most popular optional mods are used.

Yes, we do not recommend using Optimizer Textures. Look at Question 5 in the General FAQ (close to the bottom of the page) in the DDSopt FAQ page.

If you follow the STEP Skyrim guide the installation order and installation notes take care of this for you.

The FO3 guide on STEP mentions that the Wasteland Patch Collection patches need to be loaded after the bashed patch. There will be an update shortly to the userlist.yaml referenced in the guide that includes entries for these so LOOT will put them in the correct place. If there are other recommendations for additions to the userlist.yaml for the FO3 guide to make it easier to use LOOT let me know.

Thanks for providing these. The upper ones seems to be pictures of the diffuse map texture file vs. screenshots from the game that include the normal maps, shaders, etc. Based on the post I assume the door pictures are ingame screenshots.

Starting at the end: Hoping these questions have simple enough answers, seems like most new users would ask this anyway.. The questions are reasonable. Most of the answers are unfortunately not simple. There are some helpful references about portions of Wrye Bash (the STEP Wrye Bash pages, Wrye Bash Readme and Advanced Readme in particular). Bethesda doesn't publish a reference for all the plugin record and subrecord types used in their games, so users need to discover this through trial and error. I've never seen a tutorial or a fairly complete reference document that covers the harder questions such as when a bash tag is appropriate or inappropriate (note that it depends on the collection of mods being used, not just the details of an individual mod plugin). Bash tags indicate which portions of the records in a plugin should override the same record types in later loading plugins. Bash tags are useful, but they only cover a portion of the record and subrecord types used in Bethesda games and they are not always very precise (a single tag may cover multiple record/subrecord types). Doubt 1: yes, in general the records in the last loading plugin overwrite all previous plugins (with exceptions for a few record types). For the example you show the last plugin wins everything. Doubt 2: sometimes the blank fields are the right ones to use. In your example the use (or non use) of alternate textures depends on the details of the model (mesh file) for the object, and different plugins may be using different models for the same object. This is, for example, a big problem with Fallout 3 weapon plugins where there are several different incompatible approaches used for weapon models. Doubt 4: the latest bashed tag script is version 1.5.1.1 . This script does a very good job of detecting candidate bash tags, and its results can be used more than 90% of the time. An example of when it might not be correct happens in Fallout 3 with the records that provide the details of NPC faces. In Fallout 3 we usually use Project Beauty to provide the face details and we don't want later loading mods overwriting these. The bash tagger script might notice that a plugin changes some aspect of NPC faces and is a candidate for one of the associated bash tags. Here we would not want the facial-related bash tags added to these mods even when the bash tagger notes it is a candidate. Doubt 5: Ideally the bash tags listed by LOOT were recommended by advanced users who looked carefully at what the plugin does and how it fits with other mods used in the game. There can be errors, of course, and the LOOT database is incomplete. Because of this the bash tagger script can be used to try to fill in the holes, but its recommendations are often correct but sometimes they aren't the best choice. When I look at the output of the bash tagger script I add the tags to the plugin, run Wrye Bash/Flash, and then examine the effects using xEdit. I used Fallout 3 references because some of the examples are easier to find there (vs. Skyrim) and because Wrye Flash for Fallout currently handles many more bah tag types than Wrye Bash for Skyrim. Maybe Mator's new Mator Smash will solve all of this for us.

It would be helpful if you provide a screenshots of a few of the textures with MG's and NMC so we can see why MG's is better.

The other difference is the anti-aliasing method; of course, it does depend on whether you can afford the fps drop.

The settings you are using don't seem to be the correct driver settings. In Pre-Installation Checklist step 4 references the Display and Video Settings section of the STEP Skyrim guide (section 1.E). AMD driver settings in the STEP guide are in Section 1.E.1.1 . The recommendations in the Catalyst Control Center Guide are rather different than those you show in your message.

The full set of patches in the main patch file of the Wasteland Patch Collection isn't part of the guide yet. When I understand how to best use this set of patches I expect to add the full set of patches to the guide. Patches that don't change FormIDs or LeveledLists are fine, and can be loaded after the bashed patch. The Wasteland Patch Collection assumes the base PlasmaRifleAwesomefied.esp plugin is used, so its associated patch isn't compatible with the current guide.

I also have some questions about this and I sent a note to Deadmano asking about a few of the patches. All of the patches need to be at or near the end of the load order, so all of then need to be reordered in LOOT.

The mod hasn't been updated in quite a while, so any small changes like this would need to be done with TES5Edit. If it is just a name change for the master file this can also be done with Wrye Bash.

I don't remember seeing any posts about this on the Nexus page. It seems like a reasonable and useful addition, but I'm not sure the game engine supports this capability.

The bigger issue is that the current version of the textures in the STEP Mod Compilation contains the medium resolution version of textures when there are high and medium resolution versions. There was a discussion of this in another thread, and it seems likely there will be an additional version of the STEP Mod Compilation with higher resolution textures (when available from the original mod). Skyrim HD has been updated and the new version hasn't been evaluated.