ACCEPTED Audio Overhaul for Skyrim (by David Jegutidse)

[EssArrBee]

The first patch had unique formids. The new one is merge able and the updated patch are posted to my github page.

[Kelmych]

Great. One less plugin  .

[keithinhanoi]

Just wanted to say that I helped David with the latest DG+DB patch plugin - I found some important sub-record data that previously wasn't forwarded from DG.

 

Then either he rolled in the USKP fixes to make the DG+DB+USKP patch himself or got help elsewhere. Not sure, but I've got that downloaded and have taken a look at it.

 

So I can tell you that without a doubt, neither the DG+DB or the DG+DB+USKP patch have any FormIDs which are unique to these two patch plugins. They're all changes to vanilla records, except for two, which make changes to AOS.esp FormID records.

 

However, I've contacted David with an idea and an offer to help which would make these patches obsolete, and simplify things considerably in general.

 

I don't want to say any more until I've heard back from him.

[DoubleYou]

Ah! Scripted compatibility... 

[keithinhanoi]

I wish!!! I still don't feel very comfortable in CK, let alone creating Papyrus scripts from scratch!

 

However - It involves a kind of scripting, though in a much much simpler form.

[keithinhanoi]

Okay, well since David has "let the cat out of the bag" on the AOS 2 comments thread on Nexus,  I am very happy to announce that I have put together a FOMOD-based all-in-one installer for AOS.

 

With this installer, the user will be presented with the option to install one of four variants of the main AOS.esp plugin, based on what DLCs they have - Dawnguard, Dragonborn, neither, or both.

 

This means the AOS Dawnguard & Dragonborn patch will no longer be necessary, as those edits have been rolled into the four variants of the AOS.esp plugin.

 

In addition, all four variants include all USKP fixes rolled in, so the AOS + USKP patch will also no longer be necessary.

 

The second page of the installer will include options to install AOS compatibility patches. The list will include everything currently on AOS 2's download page on Nexus, plus the Dragon Combat Overhaul and Pure Weather patches.

 

For the weather mod patches, and some of the other patches, two variants will be available (for example, 1) Skyrim only, or 2) Skyrim + Dawnguard), but the variant of the compatibility patch will be automatically chosen based on the users choice of the main AOS.esp plugin.

 

Where possible, the compatibility patch plugin names will be changed to AOS2_ModName_patch.esp for the sake of consistency.

 

Finally, David has requested that two versions of the all-in-one installer be offered, one with loose sound files as originally offered, and other with sound files packed into a .BSA file.

 

Of course as I am an avid diehard user of Mod Organizer, I can guarantee the AOS all-in-one FOMOD installer will work just great using MO's internal FOMOD installer routine, as well as in Nexus Mod Manager.

 

I apologize for not sharing this information sooner, as I know it will affect the STEP patch(es), but I hope that you all agree it will greatly simplify the install process and user-friendliness of AOS for all users, STEP and otherwise.

[EssArrBee]

I doubt it will affect the patches. I might have to remove some records but that isn't a big deal to me.

[TechAngel85]

STEP now requires all DLCs as a requirement which started with the 2.2.7 (or perhaps the 2.2.8...can't remember) release. We've stopped catering to users that only have one or two DLCs (or none at all). This was necessary for us to move forward with STEP. Soo....I doubt it'll mean too much editing to the patches for SRB.

[EssArrBee]

I merged the old dlc patch and every other patch to the STEP Patches, so there may be some duplicate records (ITMs). But they aren't going to mess anything up in STEP and there are so few that will actually be in conflict with other mods that you will not need to mess with it until I feel like changing it.

[EssArrBee]

v2.1:

 

(01.05.2014) Update

Audio Overhaul for Skyrim 2.1 is now available for download!

The mod now comes in a easy to use installer, thanks to keithinhanoi. It contains the updated compatibility patches and smartly combines plugins where possible to lower the number of .esp files in the loadorder.
Changes:
-New 1 handed blade impact sounds that are not inappropriate like the 2.0 ones.
-Several changes to propagation range and amplitude of fires, dungeon waterfalls and continuous ambient magic sounds, generally making these things less audible over distance and through walls and thus less distracting in a tightly packed environment.
-Small cleanups in the esp.
-Various amplitude tweaks to some ambient sounds
-New compatibility patches for Requiem and Traps Make Noise - More Dangerous Traps as part of the installer

Known Bug: The Waterfalls and Rapids slider appears twice in the Audio menu and the second one is the real one. I don't know why this happens and it's annoying but it doesn't affect the game in any other way other than looking stupid in the audio menu, which you shouldn't really mess with on a regular basis anyways.

 

Need to see if the combat sounds are better than what we are using. Also, see how to use the installer and what options to use so we can update the directions. I'll take a look at it in a bit to see if we need to update the patches, which I didn't want to do, but whateves. 

[Gekko64]

thanks for the handy installer keith :)

[DoubleYou]

Just installed this. Pretty simple. Love fomods.

[keithinhanoi]

Just installed this. Pretty simple. Love fomods.

Yeah, so do I, but unfortunately, with the way I set up the installer, I left all Wyre Bash users out in the cold. alt3rn1ty has come to the rescue, and is modifying it so it will work on WB as well (as a "complex" installer), and then I'll go through it again to make sure it's still good for MO users.

 

All in all a good learning experience, and I'm putting together a tutorial on how to create mod installers with different options like this one for AOS, and I will be incorporating a section on making it WB compatible. Reason for this is because when I searched, there really isn't any very non-technical explanations on making an options-based installer, and certainly not updated with Skyrim in mind or with screenshots to make it more visual. If I've missed a guide like that, please drop me a line.

 

Anyhow, for those wondering, I went through nearly all of the patches included in the installer and fixed / updated most of them. One important thing I did is to add explicit masters to the headers of patches that didn't have them. This should help in avoiding people installing patches they don't need, but does of course have the side effect of CTD at startup if they don't realize it before then. It should also help LOOT to sort the patches in the right load order position, that being after both AOS and the other mod the patch is for. All things that strict STEP users won't have to worry much about, I expect, but for the rest of the world I hope it helps!

 

If you are really interested in what exactly was changed / fixed in the patches, I made a detailed AOS2 patch plugin changelist for LoRd KoRn, so you can take a look at that in here on pastebin.

 

Finally, I want to mention that I have not been able to reproduce the bug that David mentions with the duplicated Waterfalls and Rapids volume slider in the sound settings menu. If you are seeing this as well, please please let me know, because I am trying to help him track down the reason. My suspicion is that he actually has a duplicate copy of the main AOS.esp plugin with a different name, and that is adding the second volume slider under a different FormID, but so far he hasn't discovered why he's getting that on his machine.

[EssArrBee]

That duplicate thing means he has loaded old saves to many times or he has two plugins that add the sliders. I get that problem a lot when testing new stuff. 

[keithinhanoi]

That duplicate thing means he has loaded old saves to many times or he has two plugins that add the sliders. I get that problem a lot when testing new stuff. 

Ahhh, yes - I didn't think of the possibility it was baked into his save game!

 

That would also explain why it never saw it in my tests, because I faithfully started a brand new game, waited through the Helgen Sequence until after character creation so I could access the settings menus.

 

I'll let him know to try starting a new game to check if he's getting it from a plugin or it's "baked" into his save game.