pack A Real Explorer's Guide to Skyrim

[dastrokes]

@CJ,

 

What do you mean by "wild edits to the landscape", I'm curious because I'm working on a mod myself, anything to be noted or its should be avoided at all.

[CJ2311]

I mean the terrain level of certain cells that have nothing to do with the bridge/docks have been altered, probably with a tiny right click when scrolling through the map with the landscaping tool open. But it's still enough to revert the terrain of the cell to an almost-vanilla state, which will make stuff added by other mods float or sink into the ground.

For instance the Windhelm bridge mod affects the shore's landscape even though it's in a non-adjacent cell, and therefore will cause the argonian fisher thingy by Nernie to look weird, since it's supposed to flatten the terrain there.

[TheBloke]

@CJ,

 

What do you mean by "wild edits to the landscape", I'm curious because I'm working on a mod myself, anything to be noted or its should be avoided at all.

If you haven't read it, this guide is recommended:  https://ck.uesp.net/wiki/TES5Edit_Cleaning_Guide_-_TES5Edit

 

It's a guide to cleaning up mods with TES5Edit.  It mentions Wild Edits briefly, and also links to a recommended video by Gopher where he shows the cleaning of Skyrim's master files.  You've probably already done that, but it's worth watching the video as there is a place where he finds a wild edit and shows what it looks like in TES5Edit, as well as talking about how it might have occurred (via the CK as CJ said; in fact I think he even opens up the CK to show an accidental creation of an ITM, which is similar. )

 

Worth watching to know what to look for/avoid when building your own mods.

[CJ2311]

Alright, I need some help people.

 

Does anyone happen to have the ETaC - Patches for version 10? I lost that with the hard drive failure, and I kinda need the files if you want the SMIM patches back. :P

Would really appreciate it if someone could upload that file somewhere, thanks.

[TheBloke]

Alright, I need some help people.

 

Does anyone happen to have the ETaC - Patches for version 10? I lost that with the hard drive failure, and I kinda need the files if you want the SMIM patches back. :P

Would really appreciate it if someone could upload that file somewhere, thanks.

I have the 10.2 version of the modular version - this any good to you?

 

 

I'm uploading it now in case it's helpful, take a few mins.

Edited May 28, 2014 by TheBloke

[dastrokes]

If you haven't read it, this guide is recommended:  https://ck.uesp.net/wiki/TES5Edit_Cleaning_Guide_-_TES5Edit

 

It's a guide to cleaning up mods with TES5Edit.  It mentions Wild Edits briefly, and also links to a recommended video by Gopher where he shows the cleaning of Skyrim's master files.  You've probably already done that, but it's worth watching the video as there is a place where he finds a wild edit and shows what it looks like in TES5Edit, as well as talking about how it might have occurred (via the CK as CJ said; in fact I think he even opens up the CK to show an accidental creation of an ITM, which is similar. )

 

Worth watching to know what to look for/avoid when building your own mods.

 

Actually I'm quite obsessed with the cleanness of my mod, I open TES5Edit to clean the mod almost every hour and check every red and green record, that's why I feel uncomfortable for the landscape edits, they are so random and hard to revert, unlike other edits which one record is just one edit, same goes for navmesh ofc.

 

Talking about the navmesh, CJ is there any chance to further clean ETaC to avoid potential conflicts, I mean when you finalize the exterior navmesh, CK normally also edits all the loaded cells even the ones whose navmeshes are untouched, (7,28) near Dawnstar for example if you need to check. I'm taking this as example because it's the only conflict between my mod and ETaC. While its a reasonable amount of work to check every edited navmesh in my mod, it may be difficult for large scale mod like ETaC, so maybe just check the aforementioned example would be apprciated.

[CJ2311]

I have the 10.2 version of the modular version - this any good to you?

 

 

I'm uploading it now in case it's helpful, take a few mins.

 

Yes, any 10.x version of the patches will do, thanks a lot.

 

 

 

Talking about the navmesh, CJ is there any chance to further clean ETaC to avoid potential conflicts, I mean when you finalize the exterior navmesh, CK normally also edits all the loaded cells even the ones whose navmeshes are untouched, (7,28) near Dawnstar for example if you need to check. I'm taking this as example because it's the only conflict between my mod and ETaC. While its a reasonable amount of work to check every edited navmesh in my mod, it may be difficult for large scale mod like ETaC, so maybe just check the aforementioned example would be apprciated.

Well, an update is about to go live for ETaC, so I'm afraid I won't be able to have a look at it until the next version. Note that simply loading your mod after ETaC would make it work correctly.

Edited May 28, 2014 by CJ2311

[TheBloke]

4 more mins.. my upload speed sucks :)

 

Here ya go!  https://TheBloke.livedrive.com/item/61a119d7d3c34ac687052559de6b3fd3

Edited May 28, 2014 by TheBloke

[Kelmych]

If you need the 10.0 Complete ETAC Patches I have those (I also have the 10.2 version). It should be up on Droplink in a few minutes.

[TheBloke]

The 2 mods that I was thinking of when I wrote that are Expanded Towns and Cities (which will always use the custom meshes if you unpack the bsa over the loose files) and Interesting NPCs (which will use old voices and scripts that are in the BSA). But there might be others, I don't really know.

 

Regarding Interesting NPCs, I think this information might be outdated?  

 

EDIT: Yeah I think it is; I've just found the thread where the information originated: https://forum.step-project.com/topic/3864-bsa-extraction-loose-files/

 

It was confirmed later in that thread that 3DNPC doesn't actually have any conflicting files in the BSA v loose.  

 

 

I just did some checking, and could find no dupes between the BSA and the loose files.

 

I verified it two different ways, to be safe, and I verified both 3.05 and the latest 3.06:

 

1. In MO, I installed 3DNPC twice, into two new mod entries "3DNPC Extracted" and "3DNPC Unextracted".

 

As the names suggest, in the first one I told MO to extract the BSA, and in the second I did not

 

I then used Winmerge to compare the two directories ("Mod Organizermods3DNPC Extracted" vs "Mod Organizermods3DNPC Unextracted").

 

It found no instances of files that conflicted.  So the result of extracting vs not extracting gave 100% identical results - except of course the Extracted had a bunch of script/music files that Unextracted did not, and Unextracted had the BSA where the other did not.

 

2. I also double checked outside MO:  I extracted the 3DNPC archive with WinRar, then I used BSAOpt to extract the resulting BSA into a separate folder.

 

I then used Winmerge again to compare the BSA-Unpacked folder against the main contents of the 3DNPC archive.

 

No duplicate files were found.

 

To be specific, the 3DNPC.bsa file contains only the folders "scripts" and "music", and the main archive does not have these folders - it contains Meshes, Seq, Sound and Textures.

 

 

 

So I think Interesting NPCs is OK - maybe they used to have dupes but cleaned it up in a recent version?

Edited May 28, 2014 by TheBloke

[CJ2311]

4 more mins.. my upload speed sucks :)

 

Here ya go!  https://TheBloke.livedrive.com/item/61a119d7d3c34ac687052559de6b3fd3

Gracias, you just saved me the headache of having to do it all over again. :D

How slow is your upload speed btw?

 

If you need the 10.0 Complete ETAC Patches I have those (I also have the 10.2 version). It should be up on Droplink in a few minutes.

Thanks to you as well. Both versions of the SMIM patches are the same though.

 

So I think Interesting NPCs is OK - maybe they used to have dupes but cleaned it up in a recent version?

Thanks for checking into it. Guess it only applies to ETaC, then. Edited May 28, 2014 by CJ2311

[TheBloke]

Gracias, you just saved me the headache of having to do it all over again. :DHow slow is your upload speed btw?

250KB/s :(  And that's after I recently upgraded to 'super fast' ADSL.  I think it's meant to be a meg up, but it's ADSL probably at a few miles' distance, so.. yeah :)    I do now at least get 2MB/s download. Sometimes, when there's a following wind and I put my router on the floor so the bits can flow downhill.

 

(I really miss being in the city. Oh 120MB/s up/down cable, I hardly knew ye!)

[cstarkey42]

With the newest beta version of MO isn't it treating the bsa exactly like we want/would expect it to, ie the bsa is extracted first and then the loose files are installed, overwriting the bsa files?  Sorry to keep bothering you about this but, after reading through the bsa extraction topic, it seems to me that mo works exactly like I always thought it did.  Well, except for the fact that it's just now beginning to extract the bsa first and then overwrite with the loose files, which, don't get me wrong, is a great feature and one more reason why mo is the best organizer there is, I still find it surprising that, given the way it has been set up all along, this hasn't always been the case.  Now that it is the case, however, are we safe to just extract the file and only worry about the mod order we set it at in the left panel of mo or am I thoroughly confused and hopeless?

 

Again, CJ, my apologies.  I have no doubt that you are getting sick of talking about this, especially since it sounds like you have your hands full over there as it is.

[TheBloke]

With the newest beta version of MO isn't it treating the bsa exactly like we want/would expect it to, ie the bsa is extracted first and then the loose files are installed, overwriting the bsa files?  Sorry to keep bothering you about this but, after reading through the bsa extraction topic, it seems to me that mo works exactly like I always thought it did.  Well, except for the fact that it's just now beginning to extract the bsa first and then overwrite with the loose files, which, don't get me wrong, is a great feature and one more reason why mo is the best organizer there is, I still find it surprising that, given the way it has been set up all along, this hasn't always been the case.  Now that it is the case, however, are we safe to just extract the file and only worry about the mod order we set it at in the left panel of mo or am I thoroughly confused and hopeless?

 

Again, CJ, my apologies.  I have no doubt that you are getting sick of talking about this, especially since it sounds like you have your hands full over there as it is.

 

Yes, it is!  I just came here to post the same thing.

 

I re-read z9's OP in the Ramifications thread, and noticed the following EDIT that hadn't been there (or I'd missed) last time I read it:

 

[*]Incentivizes mod authors to provide BSA 'hotfixes' as loose files (NOTE: This has undesireable ramifications for MO users due to behavior of BSA extraction in MO ... BSA extracts last, so loose file hotfix is overridden by original version within the BSA! EDIT: this is fixed in the current beta and next release of MO)

 

So I just ran a quick test:

 

• Took a BSA from a mod, and extracted it in a new directory
• Edited one of the script/source/ files, adding a bunch of random text.  Deleted most of the rest of the files I extracted.
• Packed up the BSA along with the files I extracted, including the modified one.
• Installed this as a mod in MO, choosing BSA extraction
• Went to the Mod Organizer/mod/test-mod/ folder, and viewed the file I edited as a loose version
• Confirmed it was my edited version; i.e. the unedited version in the BSA had not overwritten it, despite the BSA being extracted after the loose files.

 

Therefore:  As of MO 1.2.1 beta, the BSA extraction is smart: it only extracts files in a BSA that do not already exist in the mod directory, i.e. that do not already exist as loose files.   (So not quite as you said above cstarkey; the BSA is still extracted last, but it's a smart, partial extraction.)

 

More importantly - you are neither confused nor hopeless, cstarkey :D

 

To summarise:  The "duplicate files in BSA vs loose, when extracting BSAs" issue is in fact a non-issue for any user who upgrades to the latest MO beta.  And it will be a non-issue for all users (who keep up-to-date) once 1.2.1beta makes a final release.  

Edited May 28, 2014 by TheBloke

[CJ2311]

I actually already added that information about the beta version of MO to the guide a bit earlier. :P

 

250KB/s :( And that's after I recently upgraded to 'super fast' ADSL. I think it's meant to be a meg up, but it's ADSL probably at a few miles' distance, so.. yeah :) I do now at least get 2MB/s download. Sometimes, when there's a following wind and I put my router on the floor so the bits can flow downhill.

 

(I really miss being in the city. Oh 120MB/s up/down cable, I hardly knew ye!)

Hah! You call that slow? Try this: