pack A Real Explorer's Guide to Skyrim

[noobzor]

You guys just need to go check out the BSA extraction thread.

Okay, I read all 13 pages of it.  I am convinced.  It turns out MO is even cleverer than I thought.  I know what I need to do now.

[Teabag86]

@cstarkey. Thanks. I've actually got that and tried to merge a few mods but couldnt get them to work. I don't know whether I should be uninstalling, unticking, deactivating, deleting, disintegrating my merged esps / mods, etc. Plus unpacking bsa's has me flummoxed. Maybe I started with some difficult mods by mistake. Noobzor has kindly given me some tips but I think I will be forever stuck at 255 mods. :(

 

Oh and people mention bashed patches and wyre bash, etc. I understand what they are meant to do but I wouldn't even know where to start.

[cstarkey42]

@teabag86  I'll send you a PM since we're starting to get this forum off track.

[keithinhanoi]

CJ - Thanks so very much for that W&C - Holidays patch - now I can actually try it out!

 

Ditto for the 3.4.1 update.

 

I noticed Skyrim Sewers 4.12 didn't make it into this newest update - I notice it mentions some removed unnecessary navmesh edits and other fixes. Not missing out on much, are we?

 

Speaking of SS4 - I have noticed that the texture for one of the sewer covers in Solitude switches to a different angle when I am a certain distance. If I move very slowly, I can see the other texture being "swiped" in. Any idea what might cause that?

[DocClox]

Broken mipmap?

[Kuldebar]

I noticed Skyrim Sewers 4.12 didn't make it into this newest update - I notice it mentions some removed unnecessary navmesh edits and other fixes. Not missing out on much, are we?

 

Speaking of SS4 - I have noticed that the texture for one of the sewer covers in Solitude switches to a different angle when I am a certain distance. If I move very slowly, I can see the other texture being "swiped" in. Any idea what might cause that?

I can't believe that mod has less than 1k endorsements. My faith in humanity is indeed lost.

Speaking of SS4 - I have noticed that the texture for one of the sewer covers in Solitude switches to a different angle when I am a certain distance. If I move very slowly, I can see the other texture being "swiped" in. Any idea what might cause that?

Sounds like a duplicate sewer cover maybe.

[CJ2311]

CJ, you know I always loved the green paint in Falkreath, but after using Gamwich's Rustic Windows...the ETaC windows are fuzzy/blurry rectangles. :( You think MJB might be able to change up those window textures at some point?

Will have to ask her. Note that Jénna is not a 2D artist though. I think she's using free textures and stock photos. :P 

Here are two mods which may be considered to add to the pack, especially the one about bridge, never realized there is so much space on/under the bridge.Windhelm Bridge Overhaulhttps://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50243/?Windhelm Exterior Alteredhttps://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50977/?

That area of the game is very "sensible", for lack of a better word. It's prone to crashes and is very FPS intensive. The less mods affecting it, the better.Both these mods have been among the first to have been tested for the pack.Both turned out to have deleted navmeshes and wild edits to the landscape in that area. And the bridge mod did cause a severe performance loss + CTDs for me. 

If you take out any loose files, then extract the bsa, then overwrite with the pre-extract loose files, would that get you pretty much the same result?

Yep, that's what I do with ETaC since I need to have everything unpacked. 

I'm wondering about the first part. Is a good rule to follow that if it has loose files and a bsa the author's intention was to have the loose files overwrite the bsa and so then we shouldn't extract the bsa? If there is only a bsa and an esp then we should still be safe to simply extract the bsa. Is this correct?

Yes, that is correct. 

I noticed Skyrim Sewers 4.12 didn't make it into this newest update - I notice it mentions some removed unnecessary navmesh edits and other fixes. Not missing out on much, are we?

The navmesh edits are already present in the REGS - Cities.esp, so there's no real need for an update, except for the additional Reach sewers entrance. 

Speaking of SS4 - I have noticed that the texture for one of the sewer covers in Solitude switches to a different angle when I am a certain distance. If I move very slowly, I can see the other texture being "swiped" in. Any idea what might cause that?

That would be because of the sewer entrance clipping with one of the vanilla covers that is purely aesthetic and can't be disabled because it's part of the same mesh as the solitude road (and probably half of the cell) The alternative would be to have the mod added cover float in the air, which is not that much better

I can't believe that mod has less than 1k endorsements. My faith in humanity is indeed lost.

Does that mod have skimpy "armors", overpowered gear, or bouncing racks? If not, then there's the reason why it has a low endorsement rate. :[ Edited May 28, 2014 by CJ2311

[thaiusmle]

I checked manually last night for Mods in REGS with BSA and loose files. 

 

ETaC

Interesting NPC

Immersive College of Winterhold

Fight Against the Thalmor III - The Aldmeri Domain

Fight Against the Thalmor IV - SOUTH DRAGON BRIDGE

The Lost Wonders of Mzark

Edited May 28, 2014 by thaiusmle

[Teabag86]

Here are two mods which may be considered to add to the pack, especially the one about bridge, never realized there is so much space on/under the bridge.

 

Windhelm Bridge Overhaul 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50243/?

 

Windhelm Exterior Altered

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50977/?

Yep, just as CJ said they are incredibly FPS intensive. I've got a fairly good setup with 4GB VRAM and normally never notice any FPS loss. With these mods I was averaging 15-20 FPS and that was with the light version! Granted I have HD everything but I am afraid they are no good for me.

[TheBloke]

@cstarkey, @noobz, @CJ:

 

Damn, another week, BSA extraction issue discovered :(  BSA extraction is awesome for fine-grained file conflict handling, as you said.

 

What method are you guys using for fixing the issue when you're discovering it?

 

The way that occurred to me was, using Interesting NPCs (3DNPC) as an example:

• Install mod as normal through MO, with BSA Extraction enabled
• Then right click, re-install.  Choose Merge instead of Replace.  This time, when the BSA extract option appears, do not choose it.  
• Then access the Filetree, and Delete the BSA that will now exist as well as its extracted contents.

 

Is that what you're doing?

 

Things are further complicated in the 3DNPC example in that, for me at least, I have the full installer only for 3.05, then the 3.05->3.06 upgrade patch.  Hitting Reinstall on my 3DNPC mod will re-install only the patch, not the full original.

 

However, looking inside that archive, I see that it contains a full replacement BSA.  So the above method still seems to work in this case; but other large mods that both have patches and contain BSAs might need to be handled more carefully.

 

 

Am I right in thinking that there's no real justification for a mod like 3DNPC having conflicting files both loose and in the BSA?  So we can ask them if they'd mind cleaning up the dupes in a future version?  I can't see the purpose for it, at least in 3DNPC's case - there's no installer, no choice of BSAs, so those conflicted files in the BSA are (for non BSA-extracting users) never ever going to be used; loose will always win.

 

But does that apply universally?  CJ said that ETaC gives different results depending on whether BSA is extracted or not - custom or default meshes - and I assume that's intentional, because she has a complex choice of different BSAs in different circumstances?  So does that mean that MJB couldn't remove those duplicates between loose and BSA files?  

 

In which case we need a better longer term solution than the above method; some extra features in MO as to how it handles BSAs could be useful.

Edited May 28, 2014 by TheBloke

[TheBloke]

In which case we need a better longer term solution than the above method; some extra features in MO as to how it handles BSAs could be useful.

 

EDIT:  My suggestion is in fact unnecessary, the problem has been fixed in MO starting with 1.2.1 beta.  MO now does a smart extraction of BSAs, such that it does not extract any file in a BSA that it detects already exists within the mod.  Therefore dupe files, BSA vs loose, will always favour the loose files, as the mod author will have intended and tested.

 

Actually it might be a fairly simple change for MO.  If it did the following automatically, I think the problem can never occur; could you guys confirm? :

[*]User installs a mod.  MO extracts its contents to a temporary directory, e.g. Mod Organizer/mods/$$TMP.modxyz.  

[*]MO detects the mod contains a BSA, and the user chooses Extract (or has that set by default)

[*]If the mod does not contain a BSA, then MO simply renames the temp directory to the final directory, e.g. Mod Organizer/mods/3DNPC, and the process is now finished.

[*]MO extracts the BSA, into the proper mod folder, e.g. Mod Organizer/mods/3DNPC

[*]MO then moves all the files from the temp directory, Mod Organizer/mods/$$TMP.modxyz into Mod Organizer/mods/3DNPC , overwriting as necessary

[*]MO deletes the (now empty) temporary directory Mod Organizer/mods/$$TMP.modxyz

[*]The result is that where there are BSA/loose file conflicts, the loose files always overwrite the BSA.  The only cost is the creation and deletion of of a temporary directory, and an extra move/merge operation; but as this is happening on the same filesystem, it should be close to instantaneous (no data is moved, only filesystem records are updated.)

Can you guys confirm that I've not missed anything, and the above automation in MO would resolve the problem for all mods with BSA/loose dupes?

Edited May 28, 2014 by TheBloke

[phryxolydian]

Hold your horses buddy. As stated in the REGS guide:

 

 

Warning:Mod Organizer users should not unpack the BSA files unless they know what they're doing. Some mods containing both BSA and loose files might not be installed properly if auto unpacking is on.

 

Don't extract your BSA's until you are better informed. Check out the BSA extraction thread, click on the View New Content tab located in the top right hand corner, it's likely in the first page. In the steps you described what you'd be doing is downloading the BSA when you click don't extract and then delete it, now how is that right?

 

[cstarkey42]

@cstarkey, @noobz, @CJ:

 

 

The way that occurred to me was, using Interesting NPCs (3DNPC) as an example:

• Install mod as normal through MO, with BSA Extraction enabled
• Then right click, re-install.  Choose Merge instead of Replace.  This time, when the BSA extract option appears, do not choose it.  
• Then access the Filetree, and Delete the BSA that will now exist as well as its extracted contents.

 

That's basically how I was thinking it could work but I need to do some research today to understand it better.  The forum suggested earlier sounds like a good place to start.  Otherwise, I can assure you, I am most definitely NOT the person you want advice from on this topic.  Still, if I had to guess, that is what I would do, though I would probably just extract it the first time, open up the zip and physically move the loose files into the folder and let them overwrite.

[CJ2311]

[TheBloke]

Hold your horses buddy. As stated in the REGS guide:

 

 

Don't extract your BSA's until you are better informed. Check out the BSA extraction thread, click on the View New Content tab located in the top right hand corner, it's likely in the first page. In the steps you described what you'd be doing is downloading the BSA when you click don't extract and then delete it, now how is that right?

 

Yeah, CJ added that comment to REGS recently, as a result of the discovery of loose/BSA conflicts, e.g. in 3DNPC and ETaC. 

 

If by BSA extraction thread you mean Ramifications of BSA extraction in Mod Organizer, then yeah I've read it and have participated quite a bit in the last few pages.

 

I'm afraid I'm not following what you mean by "In the steps you described what you'd be doing is downloading the BSA when you click don't extract and then delete it, now how is that right?"  - could you rephrase?  The steps involve first installing the mod with BSA extraction, then installing it again without BSA extraction - and the second time, choosing to Merge the mod not Replace.    During the first installation, MO unpacks all the loose files, then unpacks the BSA on top of them - BSA wins the conflict.  But the second install, the BSA is not unpacked, and therefore the loose files which get written in a second time, now overwrite any duplicate BSA files.  

 

Remember the second install is a Merge, not a Replace.   The result of the second install is that you now also have a BSA file (as well as its contents), and so this should be deleted.

 

I've already done it with 3DNPC and confirmed that everything looks fine.  I'm pretty sure there can't be any hidden issues - ultimately we're just talking about extracting multiple archives, and working around the fact that MO always extracts the BSA last into the same directory.  But I wanted to double check, and to confirm if there might be any quicker/easier way; but I don't think there is.

Edited May 28, 2014 by TheBloke