pack A Real Explorer's Guide to Skyrim

[statmonster]

That's ... unfortunate...

 

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I see the new ETaC has a patch for Mena's Inns and Taverns - I assume if we run that then her mod can be used with REGs - no?

Edited March 17, 2015 by statmonster

[darkside]

ETaC is now 13.5

[CJ2311]

I see the new ETaC has a patch for Mena's Inns and Taverns - I assume if we run that then her mod can be used with REGs - no?

That patch hasn't been updated since version 13, so it's incompatible with the current version of ETaC. (Specifically with Shor's Stone or Stonehills, I don't remember which)

Edited March 17, 2015 by CJ2311

[statmonster]

That's unfortunate - I thought I had asked her about that but I guess she was referring to the previous one... :(

[Pretendeavor]

After updating to the new ETaC I decided to merge as many of the patches as possible to save some esp slots. Earlier I only merged the patches that didn't have the 'Navigation mesh info map', because I'm not sure how to treat the patches that have it (the BFT, CRF, EWDR and ORS patches). I read some people succesfully merged them, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm overwriting things I shouldn't be overwriting :p The 'Navigation mesh info map' part in the merged file seems to contain the same information as the last selected patch for the merge, in my case that was the 'ETaC - Whiterun Ext CRF Patch'. Could someone enlighten me here?

[hishutup]

- JK's Riften changes the layout of the city.

- Cutting Room Floor reactivates the south gate of Riften.

- Interesting NPCs adds a new entrance in the lower levels of the city.

And all these mods affect the same navmeshes.

Ok, I see the bridge and that wasnt hard but I got something about changing a reference or something.

 

I dont quite know what to do about the gate. Do I just finalize the mesh or is there something special I have to do with it?

 

As for JK's stuff he uses a collision box on most -if not all- objects.

[keithinhanoi]

After updating to the new ETaC I decided to merge as many of the patches as possible to save some esp slots. Earlier I only merged the patches that didn't have the 'Navigation mesh info map', because I'm not sure how to treat the patches that have it (the BFT, CRF, EWDR and ORS patches). I read some people succesfully merged them, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm overwriting things I shouldn't be overwriting :p The 'Navigation mesh info map' part in the merged file seems to contain the same information as the last selected patch for the merge, in my case that was the 'ETaC - Whiterun Ext CRF Patch'. Could someone enlighten me here?

Yes, the Navigation Mesh Info Map record in your merged plugin does in fact only contain data from the last selected patch in your merged, which means it is missing important data about NavMeshes and "teleport" doors for all the other merged plugins which have the Navigation Mesh Info Map record.

 

In the ETaC forum thread on merging plugins, Missjenabee explains what to do about the special Navigation Mesh Info Map record when doing a merge with two or more plugins that have that record.

 

In TES5Edit, just delete the Navigation Mesh Info Map record from your merged plugin and save it, load it into CK, and then just save it. By doing this, CK will rebuild the Navigation Mesh Info Map for all of the merged NavMesh records in the plugin.

 

That's the simple explanation, though, because to load a patch plugin into the CK, you need to set all of its masters as "false esm" plugins (using TES5Edit or Wrye Bash), because CK won't load more than one regular .esp, but can load multiple masters.

 

After saving the merged plugin, you then need to turn off the .esm flag in all the plugin's masters so everything is back to normal again.

 

A bit tricky, but full necessary for things to work correctly.

 

Here's the ETaC Forum thread to read, but note that her instructions on merging patches is not quite correct in my opinion.

 

First, I believe you should not change all the merged plugin's masters to have the ESM flag until after using the Merge Plugins script in TES5Edit. Second, although in the instructions for merging the separate ETaC module plugins she mentions deleting the Navigation Mesh Info Map record and opening / saving in CK to rebuild it, she doesn't include that step in her instructions for merging patch plugins. It most definitely needs to be done if more than one of your patch plugins you are merging has a Navigation Mesh Info Map record.

[Pretendeavor]

Alright, thanks for this clarification. So basically: Merge the plugins, including the ones that contain the Navigation Mesh Info Map; delete that record; "esmify" the master files (and put them in the same order as they were pre-merge if needed(?)), load the plugin in the CK and save it to rebuild the record; "espify" the masters again.

 

One final question, just to make certain I'm not misunderstanding something, if only 1 of the plugins you are trying to merge contains the Navigation Mesh Info Map record the Merge Plugins script will do just fine? I'm asking this because I had some trouble with the CK last time I started it (which was a while ago), so if I end up being too lazy to go through this process I might decide to include only one of those plugins in the merge. That's something for tomorrow though, it's getting late. Thanks again.

[hishutup]

I think I know what I was doing wrong when trying to patch the cities mods. I believe I need to delete the offending mods nav meshes and then redo them in the new esp.

 

Jk does edit some certs but I believe he was looking at the vertical axis but that is speculation

[darkside]

Yes, the Navigation Mesh Info Map record in your merged plugin does in fact only contain data from the last selected patch in your merged, which means it is missing important data about NavMeshes and "teleport" doors for all the other merged plugins which have the Navigation Mesh Info Map record.

 

In the ETaC forum thread on merging plugins, Missjenabee explains what to do about the special Navigation Mesh Info Map record when doing a merge with two or more plugins that have that record.

 

In TES5Edit, just delete the Navigation Mesh Info Map record from your merged plugin and save it, load it into CK, and then just save it. By doing this, CK will rebuild the Navigation Mesh Info Map for all of the merged NavMesh records in the plugin.

 

That's the simple explanation, though, because to load a patch plugin into the CK, you need to set all of its masters as "false esm" plugins (using TES5Edit or Wrye Bash), because CK won't load more than one regular .esp, but can load multiple masters.

 

After saving the merged plugin, you then need to turn off the .esm flag in all the plugin's masters so everything is back to normal again.

 

A bit tricky, but full necessary for things to work correctly.

 

Here's the ETaC Forum thread to read, but note that her instructions on merging patches is not quite correct in my opinion.

 

First, I believe you should not change all the merged plugin's masters to have the ESM flag until after using the Merge Plugins script in TES5Edit. Second, although in the instructions for merging the separate ETaC module plugins she mentions deleting the Navigation Mesh Info Map record and opening / saving in CK to rebuild it, she doesn't include that step in her instructions for merging patch plugins. It most definitely needs to be done if more than one of your patch plugins you are merging has a Navigation Mesh Info Map record.

Do we need to unpack the BSA before opening a merged patch in CK?

[keithinhanoi]

Alright, thanks for this clarification. So basically: Merge the plugins, including the ones that contain the Navigation Mesh Info Map; delete that record; "esmify" the master files (and put them in the same order as they were pre-merge if needed(?)), load the plugin in the CK and save it to rebuild the record; "espify" the masters again.

 

That's it, exactly - but those are the steps for plugin from merged compatibility patches.

 

One final question, just to make certain I'm not misunderstanding something, if only 1 of the plugins you are trying to merge contains the Navigation Mesh Info Map record the Merge Plugins script will do just fine? I'm asking this because I had some trouble with the CK last time I started it (which was a while ago), so if I end up being too lazy to go through this process I might decide to include only one of those plugins in the merge. That's something for tomorrow though, it's getting late. Thanks again.

 

Yes, if only one of your compatibility patches contained the Navigation Mesh Info Map (NAVI) record, then that means none of the other patches merged contained Navigation data, and your NAVI does not need to be rebuilt, and so you don't need to load it into the CK.

 

The NAVI record is a bit of an anomaly in the way Skyrim handles it as compared to other kinds of records. Think of the NAVI as a kind of directory for all of the NavMesh data in the plugin. Every .esp plugin or .esm master in your load order that has any NavMesh data must also have its own NAVI record, unique to that plugin / master. When you run Skyrim, it essentially combines all of the NAVI records together, but also following the "rule of one" for any plugins that make edits to the same NavMesh records. The NAVI record is always the same FormID in any plugin that has it: 00012FB4.

 

Do we need to unpack the BSA before opening a merged patch in CK?

 

CJ might be able to clarify on this, but if you are just opening a plugin created from merged compatibility patches to immediately save it to create the NAVI record, then I don't believe you need to unpack any BSA archives. Of course BSA archives would only go with any of the merged compatiblility patch's master plugins. I've never seen a compatibility patch that had an accompanying BSA.

 

However, if you are re-building the NAVI record for a merge of different mod's plugins, then yes - you should have all loose assets available for the CK to access.

 

In the case of re-building a new NAVI record for a plugin of merged compatibility patches, if you're worried about the BSA thing for their respective masters that also need to be available to the CK, then you can avoid having to unpack the BSA's by adding them to the CK's SkyrimEditor.ini file.

 

Just open SkyrimEditor.ini, and search for SResourceArchiveList2 and add all the BSA names to the end of the list, like this:

SResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Update.bsa, Dawnguard.bsa, HearthFires.bsa, Dragonborn.bsa, AdditionalMasterMod1.bsa, AdditionalMasterMod2.bsa 

This will tell the CK to load those BSAs when starting up. Make sure to check the EditorWarnings.txt file that there aren't any errors of assets not being loaded, which would indicate either you fogot to add a BSA, or you did something wrong.

 

If you're not sure what "normal" CK startup errors are, then fire up the CK and make the Active Plugin one from a really simple mod that doesn't have any BSA or loose files. Make a duplicate of the EditorWarnings.txt file after that so you can compare it to when you load any merged plugin for rebuilding the NAVI record.

 

Best of luck with it!

[hishutup]

I don't believe you need the bsa because it should attach the nessecary links to the formid. Personally I add the BSA to the second archive list. I do believe there is a limit on the size of string so be careful with adding no more than 255 characters.

 

All of the very necessary nav mesh info is stored in the navmesh records. I consider the navi info map to be the compiled by info.

 

There are a few tweaks you should do, one of which being the bAllowMultipleMasters or similar and two, bSuppressWarnings or w/e it is called.

[keithinhanoi]

Thanks CJ.  Darkside already sent me the old replacement esps and the helgen patch.  I didn't realize there were different versions, however, so now I'm even more confused.  I'm going through them and trying to update the fixes Keith mentions and am pulling my hair out ( not so much from the patching but from the fact my 22 month old kid is wanting lots of attention today.  It's not so bad when he sits on my lap but he insists on sitting on my right knee, pushing my mouse arm all over the place... ).  I'm not sure which version I have, as far as I know it's the last one posted here ( unless you mean FATT I, II, III or IV.  In which case, I'm hoping to add all four to this playthrough and do some serious Thalmor hunting ).

 

Which fixes posted by Keith need to be added or are these good to go?  I see he gave some instructions for updating FATT IV which isn't an esp supplied by REGS so maybe that's the only one?

Hi - I just realized I missed this post from before.

 

On the comments thread for FAtT IV - South Dragonbridge, I did post about a fix that can be done in TES5Edit to the teleport door location both into and out of the main entrance of Valgus Mine. There's also a problem with some sound markers that add a music cue that - for some people -gets stuck before finishing and going back to the normal ambient music, and so they lose their normal ambient music. In my comment post I explain how to delete the offending sound marker records as a preemptive measure, or the console commands you can use if the problem has already occurred (it gets stuck in your game saves, and there is no other way to get rid of it besides these console commands.)

 

However, one very keen user by the name of Raycheetah sent me some PMs asking about the teleport door location fix, and he figured out fixes for some more problematic teleport door locations in the mod. He has posted all of that information in the comments thread. Now I could make a patch plugin, but I have not gotten permission from MadFrenchie to do so, I am really hesitant to release any patch for any mod when I haven't talked it over with the mod author directly. That's just me, though, and so I suppose some enterprising individual could decide to post the FAtT IV fixes in the form of a patch plugin. I just hope they would give me credit, because it literally took me hours to figure out the exact issues.

 

Of course none of this helps with the reports of CTDs at the southern end of the Dragon Bridge. Although I've never had any CTD problems, I see that my followers have trouble getting through the road at that end of the bridge and I am quite sure that FAtT has some issues with the NavMesh, or in the last is overwriting or being overwritten by NavMesh edits made by yet another mod. Never checked into it though.

[cstarkey42]

Thanks for the reply Keith.  I added your fixes to FATT IV and it seems to work so far.  I'm just testing a new set up but no CTD at the bridge.  I'll check the comments again and add the other fixes you mentioned as well.  I'm hoping to get all four FATTs going in my next game.

 

Thanks for the detailed merging posts also.  I was definitely doing some of mine wrong so those were a huge help.

[CJ2311]

Ok, I see the bridge and that wasnt hard but I got something about changing a reference or something.

 

I dont quite know what to do about the gate. Do I just finalize the mesh or is there something special I have to do with it?

Just finalizing the navmesh would be enough. Of course you need to make sure that Cutting Room Floor is loaded before JK's Riften in order to keep the navmesh from the latter.