MO2 (Developer Builds) and the Creation Kit, MCM, Transfer Settlements mods

[GSDFan]

The following pertains to the developer builds of MO2. This has been tested with the latest build 2017-11-24 with the Update A2. The A3 update will cause the Creation Kit (CK) to report that it is not working and close and the latest version of Fallout 4. This may well work for SkyrimSE and other programs run from MO2. As always this worked for me and your mileage may vary.

 

As MO2 is still in Beta and there are numerous problems still being worked on. The two problems I have encountered, one is that the CK will not load at all, this is not a MO2 problem at all, and once it is run, saving will result in a hung not responding CK and the user must terminate the CK manually and lose all work done. I would highly suggest that if you are doing a complex mod to do it in the vanilla environment.

 

Problem one, as I stated earlier is not a MO2 problem and is included here to help others, as it can manifest in the vanilla environment also under certain conditions. Especially if the user has installed optional DLLs in the games root folder. In my case I found out that I had a DLL called dxgi.dll. If this DLL is present, the CK will not load when it is launched even from outside of MO. Renaming this DLL will allow the CK to launch. So, for every session you want to run the CK you just must rename dxgi.dll to something else and you are good to go.

 

Problem two, not saving from the CK. This will be for the CK run from MO2, but may work for other programs run from MO2. As I understand it, MO2 has a problem when writing files that aren’t already in the VFS system, often resulting in odd behaviors, i.e. not saving newly created files, and hung programs.

 

With that in mind I do the following:

For editing an ESP:

1. Open the mod to be worked on in a Windows Explorer window.
2. Open the MO2 Overwrite folder in a Windows Explorer window.
3. Copy, not move, MOD-Name.esp from the mods window to the MO2 Overwrite window.
4. Start the CK and make changes until you are ready to save.
5. When you are finished save your modified mod. It will now be saved to the Overwrite folder.
6. If you are not going to modify anymore, right click the Overwrite folder and select “Sync to Mods…†option. Your mod will be copied to the back to the original mod. The Overwrite folder should now be empty.

For converting “MOD-Name.esp†to an esl:

1. Copy, not move, MOD-Name.esp from the mods window to the MO2 Overwrite window.
2. Make a copy of “MOD-Name.esp†to “MOD-Name copy.esp†and rename it to “MOD-Name.eslâ€. You can also use a blank ESP to do this. I use a saved blank Bashed Patch, “Bashed Patch, 0.esp†from Wrye Bash, to do this renaming as needed.
3. You should now have “MOD-Name.esp†and “MOD-Name.esl†in the overwrite folder.
4. Copy, not move, the newly created “MOD-Name.esl’ into the mod being worked on folder window. This will make the actions in the last step work for us.
5. Start MO2 and the CK and open the mod to converted, as described above, making it the active mod. From the file menu select the “Compact Active File Form IDs†click through the dialogs until no more show up.
6. From the file menu, select “Convert Active File to Light Masterâ€. Click the dialogs until no more show up. The new ESL will be written to the “MOD-Name.esl†in the Overwrite folder at this time.
7. No need to do anything else in the CK so close it now.
8. Back in MO right click the Overwrite folder and select “Sync to Mods…†option. Your mod will be copied back to the original mod leaving the Overwrite folder empty.

 

For the MCM and MCM mods you need to have the empty data structure in the vanilla “Data†folder. They are MCM\Config and MCM\Settings. With this folder structure present in the Data folder MCM mods will now show up in game.

 

I also had some problems with Transfer Settlements mod not saving Blueprints. To correct this, I had to create the following folder structures, “F4SE\plugins\TransferSettlements\Backup†and “F4SE\plugins\TransferSettlements\blueprintsâ€. When present in the vanilla game settlement blueprints will now save in game. When testing this without the folder structure present the Transfer Settlements would complete without any mod added ESPs being listed. With it there I got the list of ESPs I was expecting to see.

 

I hope this helps users of the Developer builds have a better experience.