TES5Edit (by ElminsterAU)

[frihyland]

Discussion thread:

TES5Edit by ElminsterAU

Wiki Link

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TES5Edit 

 

TES5Edit Cleaning Guide

 

TES5Edit Mod Cleaning Tutorial 

 

Get it, read about it , use it.

[frihyland]

Don't forget to Endorse it and Vote for it.

[frihyland]

Holy cow, look whats planned for next release.  Scripted combining and editing 

[mothergoose729]

Been using this mod a ton. Just wanted to point out that removing ITMs can break mods or remove functionality. I know that destructible bottles and Improved close faced helms, at least, should not be cleaned of their ITMs.

[Besidilo]

Been using this mod a ton. Just wanted to point out that removing ITMs can break mods or remove functionality. I know that destructible bottles and Improved close faced helms at least, should not be cleaned of their ITMs.

 

I fail to see how deleting ITMs could cause any issues.

[torminater]

OK, I'll explain:

If a mod is loaded after a mod and both change the same "object", but the first one changes it to something other than in Skyrim.esm and the second RELIES on the exact same "object" as it is in Skyrim.esm, THEN the second mod might not work. Sounds complicated - it isn't.

[JudgmentJay]

From my understanding it's almost impossible for something to break when you remove ITMs since when you remove them... you still have the exact same thing in the master. The mod is just making that information needlessly redundant. Correct me if I'm wrong!

[Besidilo]

OK, I'll explain:

If a mod is loaded after a mod and both change the same "object", but the first one changes it to something other than in Skyrim.esm and the second RELIES on the exact same "object" as it is in Skyrim.esm, THEN the second mod might not work. Sounds complicated - it isn't.

Ah, that makes sense now. So it's really a mod incompatibility and part of the incompatible mod would be overwritten anyway. In that case you should merge the plugins in TES5Edit or ask the author to make a compatibility patch or whatever.

[mothergoose729]

I am guessing that the way that TES5 compares two objects to determine if they are identical is not exactly accurate. I have isolated both files before with only the skyrim.esm and required masters and cleaned them, and found on more than one occasion that this removes functionality from the plugin. In the case of destructible bottles, cleaning it makes bottles no longer destructible. Moving it to a different position to the load order doesn't solve it, it has to be reinstalled from the source with no edits. In the case of improved close faced helms,I have discovered missing textures (invisible heads) after cleaning it. The missing heads correspond exactly to the items removed as ITMS, in my place a khajit head mesh variant for dwemer helms. I need to look into it more, but tentatively going to say that cleaning ITMs indiscriminately could, possibly, harm the plugin.

[torminater]

 

 

I am guessing that the way that TES5 compares two objects to determine if they are identical is not exactly accurate. I have isolated both files before with only the skyrim.esm and required masters and cleaned them and found on more than one occasion that this removes functionality from the plugin. In the case of destructible bottles, cleaning it makes bottles no longer destructible. Moving it to a different position to the load order doesn't solve it, it has to be reinstalled from the source with no edits. In the case of improved close faced helms,I have discovered missing textures (invisible heads) after cleaning it. The missing heads correspond exactly to the items removed as ITMS, in my place a khajit head mesh variant for dwemer helms. I need to look into it more, but tentatively going to say that cleaning ITMs indiscriminately could, possibly, harm the plugin.

That's why cleaning mods should ONLY be left to the mod author! TES5Edit currently is more or less a source for reference for a mod maker, how well his mod is set up and whether he needs to improve something. If cleaning ALL the mods in step with TES5Edit in it's current state will be explicitely named as a part of STEP I'll not do it. Most of the times it might work right, but it doesn't always, and who apart from the mod makers should take up the burden to verify whether every single mod they "cleaned" still works as well as before the "cleaning"?

[mothergoose729]

That is a bit of a sticky dilemma. If STEP advertises a plugin as having "x structural issues" and these are not in fact errors are at all but essential parts of the mod, then STEP is doing that modder a great disservice.

[JudgmentJay]

We need to get someone more knowledgeable about ITMs in here, because I swear I remember reading a post by Arthmoor saying that it's almost impossible for removed ITMs to cause problems.

 

EDIT: This is the post I was thinking of: https://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1418088-relz-tes5edit/page__view__findpost__p__21676083

[mothergoose729]

I would appreciate a better explanation myself. I am really nonplussed as to how I managed to break some of my mods doing nothing but cleaning out the dirty edits. Everything I know about how the records works says it shouldn't hurt anything. Maybe it was something else I did instead, but I can't think of how else I changed these files. Very peculiar.

[Sairven]

@mothergoose

 

This is why I shook my head when I saw TES5edit being recommended for use of non-mod authors DESPITE what Gopher explicitly stated in his 22-minute tutorial.

 

Like Gopher said: Sometimes you want dirty edits because they're meant to make sure something stays vanilla because the mod requires it.

[PioneerRaptor]

 

I am guessing that the way that TES5 compares two objects to determine if they are identical is not exactly accurate. I have isolated both files before with only the skyrim.esm and required masters and cleaned them and found on more than one occasion that this removes functionality from the plugin. In the case of destructible bottles, cleaning it makes bottles no longer destructible. Moving it to a different position to the load order doesn't solve it, it has to be reinstalled from the source with no edits. In the case of improved close faced helms,I have discovered missing textures (invisible heads) after cleaning it. The missing heads correspond exactly to the items removed as ITMS, in my place a khajit head mesh variant for dwemer helms. I need to look into it more, but tentatively going to say that cleaning ITMs indiscriminately could, possibly, harm the plugin.

That's why cleaning mods should ONLY be left to the mod author! TES5Edit currently is more or less a source for reference for a mod maker, how well his mod is set up and whether he needs to improve something. If cleaning ALL the mods in step with TES5Edit in it's current state will be explicitely named as a part of STEP I'll not do it. Most of the times it might work right, but it doesn't always, and who apart from the mod makers should take up the burden to verify whether every single mod they "cleaned" still works as well as before the "cleaning"?

 

They're not going to make an essential part of STEP without testing it first. You can be assured that if it is a part of STEP then it will have been thoroughly tested and it will not ruin any mods.