Step 3.0.0 Maintenance

[Darklocq]

16 hours ago, z929669 said:

... please hold off on making any changes other than updates to instructions due to mod updates (e.g., FOMOD options, etc.) until @TechAngel85 is able to address your findings with the CR patch.

Will do.  I figured this would take priority over other stuff (unless I'm somehow mistaken about it).

16 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

Flawless Widescreen works flawlessly with Skyrim Legendary Edition, and it supports SkyUI. 

I-i-interesting.  I'd been about to commit to "Ultrawidescreen Fixes for Skyrim LE", but "Flawless Widescreen" on the SE side certainly seemed less klugey.

I gotta check out for a while.  Will be back within a day, I'm sure.

Edit: Oh, Flawless WS is that external program; I was thinking of Complete Widescreen Fix SE and/or TrueBy9.

Edited June 12, 2021 by Darklocq
I confused myself.

[TechAngel85]

One thing to note is that there are several edits to the Patch that aren't covered by any obvious mods because those things were incorporated into to the Patch by incorporating either 3rd-party patches or mod. These are only included if permissions allow or we specifically sought permissions from the author. Other things may have come from the result of dropping WB, so all leveled lists and such are handled by hand. Also keep in mind we only incorporate mods that are plugin-only. If the mod contains assets (textures/meshes/extra) they belong in the Guide.

1 hour ago, Darklocq said:

* There's a pair of errors in the STEP CR Patch, I'm not sure if potentially CTD-causing.  A headgear item has two "Error: Could not be resolved". It's 'DBArmorHelmetWorn
"Shrouded Masked Cowl" [ARMO:00105969]', seemingly two custom-race heads from someone's personal game).  I've patched those out and this is probably worth a hotfix at the Nexus without incrementing anything other than the file's version number: https://mega.nz/file/dBh2xbJL#QRyrDPK3b3PBXxyRA6bm-nArxqxM_f-jiRbC29cQ2f8  I can't think of a good reason for those to be in there.  What other heads are there to deal with for a helmet/hood than humanoid, Argonian, and Khajiit?  I'm thinking it was probably Citrus or Demonica or something.

I would have to see this to know what it's from. It could be a leftover from something or from an incorporated mod.

1 hour ago, Darklocq said:

** I've already patched out "Masque of Argonian Vile": https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/108061/ and eliminated it as a master (not in the hotfix file above; that ONLY removed the unresolvables). There's a better mod for this anyway, that also does Khajiit, and it needs no patching.  Better yet, the ESP (in either of these cases) can be entirely eliminated!  I've already produced a CR that does this.

If there is a mod that does the same but is better, feel free to change to it.

1 hour ago, Darklocq said:

** Next, I patched out "Enhanced Blood Textures Lite": https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/108063 - one can now use the Full version if one wants to (at the cost of at least 1 more ESP slot).  Made a new CR that merges this with the tweak above.

Full version was removed on purpose. We desire the Lite version for the Guide (see comment below about user choices).

1 hour ago, Darklocq said:

** Still pending permissions: I patched out "Non-essential Children" and made a new-new CR that doesn't have it as a master. It can be swapped with the improved "Non Essential Children Reworked", though both actually had a bug in them which I also fixed.  Both have restrictive permissions, but still-around authors, so I've written to both of them.

Fine with this too, as long as we get those permissions to incorporate and it's plugin-only.

1 hour ago, Darklocq said:

** Not having "Stealth Skills Rebalanced" be a CR master would also be desirable, but there's some weirdness going on there that needs closer examination (CR is imposing changes not found in ANY of its masters, to trivial stuff like what low-end clothing is in some leveled lists).  Not sure if that's an error (like leftovers from STEP LE 2.x), or if some tool was used that merged LLs without making master dependencies.

Leveled list stuff come from various mods and not all options will be within the Guide or installed by the user to see those conflicts (because it was incorporated). I'd have to see it to know what it is.

1 hour ago, Darklocq said:

** There're probably other mods that're CR masters that can be patched out like this with replacement ESPs.  These patches I'm generating will be useful for some non-STEP people, too.

It's sounds like you're making a ton of CR patches for "choices". There aren't "choices" in the Step Guides anymore. They are meant to be installed "as-is". Gone are the days where we catered to various setups. Now it's all or nothing. Which is why there are only two Step Patches and no more. If users want to deviate, they're on their own. If they want the "Step experience", they can install the Guide as is. Keep this in mind because we don't want 15 patches for various user setups...which sounds like what you're doing? 

[z929669]

Agree with Tech on Step patches. We want to maintain only one for CR and one for L&W. Any more is just more work for all of us. Guide users that want to deviate should also be OK with learning this stuff themselves ... give'em and inch, and they will take a mile.

That said, in unofficial guides, you can do whatever you like.

Lastly, if you are going to swap out "Masque of Argonian Vile" for something else, you will need to create that mod page on the forums (TIP: Edit an existing well-formatted mod OP and copy/paste the source, minding that you need a blank line after the <hr> to preserve that) and apply the "testing" prefix. Once it is approved by at least one other staff person, the prefix should be changed to "accepted". Also always link to the mod page on the wiki, even if it doesn't yet exist (use same string as mod name on post). The link will become valid later when you create the mod page. Also note that forum mod pages should also get the proper modgroup category tag (like '03-Resources', fe)

[Darklocq]

2 hours ago, TechAngel85 said:

One thing to note is that there are several edits to the Patch that aren't covered by any obvious mods because those things were incorporated into to the Patch by incorporating either 3rd-party patches or mod. These are only included if permissions allow or we specifically sought permissions from the author. Other things may have come from the result of dropping WB, so all leveled lists and such are handled by hand. Also keep in mind we only incorporate mods that are plugin-only. If the mod contains assets (textures/meshes/extra) they belong in the Guide.

I would have to see this to know what it's from. It could be a leftover from something or from an incorporated mod.

If there is a mod that does the same but is better, feel free to change to it.

Full version was removed on purpose. We desire the Lite version for the Guide (see comment below about user choices).

Fine with this too, as long as we get those permissions to incorporate and it's plugin-only.

Leveled list stuff come from various mods and not all options will be within the Guide or installed by the user to see those conflicts (because it was incorporated). I'd have to see it to know what it is.

It's sounds like you're making a ton of CR patches for "choices". There aren't "choices" in the Step Guides anymore. They are meant to be installed "as-is". Gone are the days where we catered to various setups. Now it's all or nothing. Which is why there are only two Step Patches and no more. If users want to deviate, they're on their own. If they want the "Step experience", they can install the Guide as is. Keep this in mind because we don't want 15 patches for various user setups...which sounds like what you're doing? 

On Masque mods: The new one is the old one plus a Khajiit version; the Argonian part of it's identical to the old one.  This one's mergeable into the CP at the ESP level. because it's literally nothing but an ARMO tweak and two ARMAs.  It'd be one of those where the instructions are to install the original mod then hide one file (its ESP).  If that's not permissible (despite doing this with other mods), then switching to the new one without integrating its ESP's three lines into the CP would still be desirable.

The children one:  It's the same as the original mod but with an improvement (something the original missed - if the kids are mortal after all, then vampires would be able to feed on them). The glitch in both of them that I patched is just keyword-related, but permissions are pending.

I don't mean to inject Mod A vs. Mod B as choices in the guide.  Rather, if something doesn't need to be a hard dependency for the CP because it can be resolved by patching the original mod, then that keeps the CP simpler and also sometimes has the side effect of increasing end-user choice, whether they know that or not.  For EBT, the guide would still recommend the Lite version. It just wouldn't have a CP that unintuitively fails to load if someone installs the Full version.  Or in some cases, like merging the Argonian masque ESP's trivial changes, it does hard-code something (things one wouldn't object to - no one wants to force Argonians to have human-shaped heads), just more efficiently and without creating an ESP/ESM master dependency.  In my case, I wanted to use the full version of Enhanced Blood Textures and was not able, and that seemed weird so I resolved it, while with the Argonian thing, it was more practical, "Why am I being forced to spend an ESP slot on something I'll never use unless I play as Argonian? And why can't I switch to this better version with Khajiit, since that's what I actually DO want?"  I'm drawing a distinction between injecting explicit user choice (which, yeah, might kind of fork the guide into different directions) versus just not artificially hard-limiting choice.  Most of STEP is replaceable, but not (without know-how and effort) the CP dependencies.

I certainly understand not making a dozen competing patches for different setups; wasn't going in that direction!  I get the concern, though.

On the CR stuff where it's doing leveled list changes that don't correspond to any masters: I'll get some details next time I look at it. And it's not high-priority anyway; updating the current instructions is.  Actually, I remember where one is and will just screenshot it:

The CP is patching the stealth skills mod consistently to conform to CACO changes (even over those of CCF), but then all of a sudden it deleted three items all the masters want to keep, and then it injects Chef clothes out of nowhere.  Why does it want a cook's outfit included so badly here and at the expense of regular stuff?  Heh.  If not for a few bits like this it would be very easy to make a Stealth Skills Rebalanced + CACO patch, for Nexus, that obviated any need for the CP to try to patch between them. Assuming there's not such a patch already, which there might be.

[TechAngel85]

57 minutes ago, Darklocq said:

On the CR stuff where it's doing leveled list changes that don't correspond to any masters: I'll get some details next time I look at it. And it's not high-priority anyway; updating the current instructions is.  Actually, I remember where one is and will just screenshot it:

The CP is patching the stealth skills mod consistently to conform to CACO changes (even over those of CCF), but then all of a sudden it deleted three items all the masters want to keep, and then it injects Chef clothes out of nowhere.  Why does it want a cook's outfit included so badly here and at the expense of regular stuff?  Heh.  If not for a few bits like this it would be very easy to make a Stealth Skills Rebalanced + CACO patch, for Nexus, that obviated any need for the CP to try to patch between them. Assuming there's not such a patch already, which there might be.

That would have been an add from a mod someone that the file isn't actually being included in the Guide because it's in the Patch. Obviously this one needs some addressing as you point out. It's not forwarding everything as it should.

[Darklocq]

25 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

That would have been an add from a mod someone that the file isn't actually being included in the Guide because it's in the Patch. Obviously this one needs some addressing as you point out. It's not forwarding everything as it should.

So it should forward in the upper part AND keep the chef clothes in the lower part, or just the former?

[TechAngel85]

16 hours ago, Darklocq said:

So it should forward in the upper part AND keep the chef clothes in the lower part, or just the former?

It's a level list for all clothes and the chef stuff is clothing, so I would say it should have upper and lower parts. All of it.

[Darklocq]

Any timeline for the 3.0.1 or 3.1.0 hotfix?  I'm still holding off any updates (changed FOMOD options, etc.) until after that.  No hurry (I've been busy making patches for stuff like "Unofficial Skyrim City Patch Reawakened" and "Immersive Content - Realistic Outdoor Lights").  Just want to plan ahead for it.

[z929669]

31 minutes ago, Darklocq said:

Any timeline for the 3.0.1 or 3.1.0 hotfix?  I'm still holding off any updates (changed FOMOD options, etc.) until after that.

Once you update mod instructions and changelog for 3.0.0 wo that this guide still 'works', then you are ready to propagate the guide and changelog to the next version (requires update to some SMW metadata), depending on what is changing (as described in STEP:Versioning). This is done on the SE Portal page, and I can do it myself or show you how to do it once you confirm where you are in the process. After that, it's a matter of ...

1. Adding any new mods not present and adding guide-version-specific instructions to existing mods if applicable (this is rare)
2. Adding forum threads for new mods
3. Revising the ModList
4. Revising the Guide doc itself
5. Rebuilding Step patches as applicable
6. Finalizing the new changelog
7. Release (we will take care of some of this stuff)
   1. Create new guide forum thread
   2. Update Nexus
   3. Update guide redirect

[Darklocq]

I think we're talking about two different things. I was talking about the unresolveable references in the CR patch; I was told that would necessitate a hotfix posted to the Nexus page, and a version increment, and I should hold off changing anything until after that.  So have been thus holding. :-)

[z929669]

12 minutes ago, Darklocq said:

I think we're talking about two different things. I was talking about the unresolveable references in the CR patch; I was told that would necessitate a hotfix posted to the Nexus page, and a version increment, and I should hold off changing anything until after that.  So have be thus holding. :-)

I see.

If the 3.0.0 CR patch needs fixing for continued use in 3.0.0 due to the issues, then I'd just make that correction without incrementing a version. One of us can post it once @TechAngel85 is satisfied with it.

Either way you can continue on with the next version without the holdup. The guide-version-specific mod Recommendations can be used for the next-version CR patch, and the existing 'base' recommendations can be updated if necessary without affecting versioning (two different files on our Nexus page). The guide framework was designed such that any components of any guide version can be maintained independently, including mods.

[Darklocq]

Update: I got original-author permission for the Non-Essential Children patch, for Simple Children + Better Quest Objectives.  So NEC will no longer need to be hard-coded as a master in a future version of the CR patch.  (I"m glad of that myself; I don't want NEC, since I have no desire to pickpocket kids or step over their corpses; it was among the least important mods added to STEP.)  Still waiting to hear from author of Non Essential Children Reworked, though that's a trivial re-mod of a trivial mod, so it won't hold up anything.

[z929669]

6 hours ago, Darklocq said:

Update: I got original-author permission for the Non-Essential Children patch, for Simple Children + Better Quest Objectives.  So NEC will no longer need to be hard-coded as a master in a future version of the CR patch.  (I"m glad of that myself; I don't want NEC, since I have no desire to pickpocket kids or step over their corpses; it was among the least important mods added to STEP.)  Still waiting to hear from author of Non Essential Children Reworked, though that's a trivial re-mod of a trivial mod, so it won't hold up anything.

After reading through the above discussion a bit more, I now understand that mod permissions are an issue in some cases ... and for relatively trivial mods.

If we can't get explicit permissions for a mod without waiting for who-knows-how-long, then I say we forget about incorporating said mod and use it "as is" or drop it. Either way, that's a mod change and a version increment. I'd say this all will end up being 3.1.0 version, so that metadata is reflected in SMW for LE DEV guide.

It the mod is trivial, then you am "seconded" by me for any decision you make about dropping/adding. So you can move forward as you choose for this stuff if you like, unless @TechAngel85 objects in the next few hours.

If 3.0.0 still 'works' as it is, then it makes sense to change any relevant mod Recommendations to bring it up to date. If such changes also apply to 3.1.0, then nothing to do for 3.0.0 mod-wise. It'll just get the updates. Go ahead and make any relevant guide text changes relating to phraseology or clarification (but not procedural changes, as that's 3.1.0 stuff).

Also remember to update the relevant Changelogs.

Lastly, I have a guide-framework how-to started on the wiki that you can use as a reference. Feel free to make any crucial edits if you deep necessary as you use it.

[TechAngel85]

2 hours ago, z929669 said:

It the mod is trivial, then you am "seconded" by me for any decision you make about dropping/adding. So you can move forward as you choose for this stuff if you like, unless @TechAngel85 objects in the next few hours.

I'm good with this as long as the Changelog is updated so that we can review changes. If anything needs to be reversed before release from a review of the changelog, then it should be fairly easy. Obviously, if the change isn't trivial it should be discussed.

[Darklocq]

All noted.

The key question is whether 3.0.0 does in fact work as-is.  I would think that 99.9% of it works, but those two cannot-resolve errors are likely to do SOMETHING at some point. I don't know if it would be a big red missing-mesh icon, just something not visibly appearing, or a CTD, or what.  My thoughts all along have been that the CR patch file could be replaced (with the fixed one I posted a Mega link to), and its Nexus version number incremented as a minor hotfix, without adjusting the STEP version number at all, since nothing substantive changed.  If that's not "how it works", then I would think it's v3.0.1, not 3.1.0, for that lack-of-substantive-change reason.

After this question is sorted, I'll start working first on instructional fixes to the current instructions, without changes in mod recommendations; then improved-version mod recommendations; only after that any more substantive change proposals].  Also with an eye to reducing the dependency complexity of the CR Patch (which also has a big impact on what people can merge to save mod slots; e.g., I see that one dependency of it right now is a mod and another is a patch for that mod, so it's kind of a double-whammy).

I'm also in process of building my own game out (I'm now at the merging like mad stage, since my STEP build works, after adding Falskaar, Wyrmstooth, and a bunch of other goodies.  I have yet to add in most of my gear, follower, and quest mods.  And I'll want to actually play it a bit. Almost forgot that's why I was doing this build. Ha ha.

If the Nexus CR Patch download won't be replaced until there's a bigger change, then I'll start on the fixing-the-current-instructions material sooner than later.