The new mod order in 1.2.5

[Octopuss]

The following changes should prevent these kinds of errors:

• Move Unofficial Skyrim Patch before Dragonborn
• Move Dawnguard before Dragonborn
• Move Unofficial Dawnguard Patch before Dragonborn
• Move HearthFires before Dragonborn
• Move Unofficial Hearthfire Patch before Dragonborn

 

Shall I? Currently my mod order mostly follows the STEP guide (for the fixes section at the least), and this directly conflicts with it.

I don't really understand the new changes, and the long thread where all of that was discussed was beyond what I could understand.

[DoubleYou]

I think for 2.2.8 we should recommend users to stick with 1.1.2 until the smoke clears. I'll see about making a sticky.

[TheBloke]

Can a staff member update the OP or start a new thread explaining the correct load order? (I'm not 100% sure myself) Once that is done, I'll update 2.2.8 with a notice and a link back to the proper load order. Than will cover us until we get 2.2.9 released.

The load order is in flux. My post just before yours, with a screenshot, shows what I believe to be the required load order (at least for the first 10 entries) as of the newly released MO 1.2.6.On top of that, there needs to be a message saying that the Unofficial Patches must not have their BSAs extracted. If a user has extracted BSAs, he/she must re-install those mods and choose not to extract.But then this will change again when 1.2.7 comes out. The don't-extract-Unofficial-BSA advice can then be removed. And the load order should go back to being flexible, such that we should not need to have the official/DLC content + unofficial content right at the top of the load order. So that STEP can again recommend certain mods go before USKP and the DLCs (like Distant Decal and whatever.)My recommendation for a message on the STEP page would, at this time, be not to upgrade past MO 1.2.1. That could then be removed when 1.2.7 is out and the major issues are fixed, which I would hope won't be more than a few more days.I suppose you also need to cater for users who have already upgraded to MO 1.2.5 or 1.2.6. You could simply advise them to downgrade to 1.2.1. Or, if that won't be popular, then advice for 1.2.5 users is to immediately upgrade to 1.2.6, and advice for 1.2.6 users is as I stated at the start of this post.

[TechAngel85]

Okay, so I'll update the notice on the MO mod page as well as create one for the 2.2.8 Guide...maybe two.

[blattgeist]

Hm.. I'm not convinced that the USKP has to be at the absolute top of the install order. Stuff that does not override anything like dummy mod folders or Esp-only mods, SkyUI should still be able to go before it without causing any issues.

 

https://s1.directupload.net/images/140625/mjtmb8el.jpg

 

See Priority 0-4, no overrides. Priority 5 (skyUI) has only an override with Spectraverse. Priority 7 is where the USPs and DLCs start, Distant Decal Fix ofc comes before that. I updated to 1.2.6 already.. the screen is from 1.2.5 but it looks like that with 1.2.6 too.

Edited June 26, 2014 by blattgeist

[TheBloke]

Hm.. I'm not convinced that the USKP has to be at the absolute top of the install order. Stuff that does not override anything like dummy mod folders or Esp-only mods, SkyUI should still be able to go before it without causing any issues.

That's specifically not what the changelog said, though:

 

a) please ensure your DLCs (and other mods not managed by MO, that's the ones without a checkbox) are at the very top of your modlist, only unofficial patches should be up there with them.

 

Based on the info we have, I can't see how else to read it - it seemed pretty clear, "ensure your non-MO mods are at the very top of the modlist" and "only unofficial patches should be up there with them."

 

To me that means USKP has to be Prio 0, and then it follows in the standard order of DG, HF, DB, HiRes, with the patches interleaved between them.

 

I agree some clarification would be good. And you might well be right - based on how Tannin described the bug, it could well be that mods that have no conflicts at all are OK to be higher.  His statement above might have been designed to be catch-all advice, guaranteed to work for everyone.

 

Also, I still have a question mark around the original "Priority 0" bug, because my understanding of that bug was that "Prio 0 overwrites everything". Tannin did not say specifically that that was fixed. Which made me a bit worried about having USKP at Prio 0.

 

But his changelog comment seemed pretty clear and specific, so until clarification is provided, I think all we can do is read it literally and go with USKP at 0 and the vanilla/unofficials following from there, up to Prio 9.

 

Also, in your example (putting SkyUI first) - is there any reason to take a risk?  It generally doesn't matter where SkyUI goes (unless you have a Favourites.swf or Map.swf mod, but even then that just means SkyUI needs to be before them; it doesn't have to be before USKP or most other mods.)  So personally I don't see any advantage in taking any chance in ignoring his changelog statement.  

Edited June 26, 2014 by TheBloke

[blattgeist]

 

I agree some clarification would be good. And you might well be right - based on how Tannin described the bug, it could well be that mods that have no conflicts at all are OK to be higher.  His statement above might have been designed to be catch-all advice, guaranteed to work for everyone.

Thats's what I think too. It's a general advice so that the majority of the people have no problems when sorting it exactly like the described it. But There should be zero problems from my understanding when putting mods above it that have no conflicts. And the Distant Decal Fix needs to go before USKP anyway.. loading it after USPs would mean overriding all the USP changes to the decals.

 

 

Also, I still have a question mark around the original "Priority 0" bug, because my understanding of that bug was that "Prio 0 overwrites everything". Tannin did not say specifically that that was fixed. Which made me a bit worried about having USKP at Prio 0.

Yeah.. I rather don't take the risk of running into that bug. That's why for me I still have the dummy mod above (skse.ini)

 

 

Also, in your example (putting SkyUI first) - is there any reason to take a risk?  It generally doesn't matter where SkyUI goes (unless you have a Favourites.swf or Map.swf mod, but even then that just means SkyUI needs to be before them; it doesn't have to be before USKP or most other mods.)  So personally I don't see any advantage in taking any chance in ignoring his changelog statement.

I believe that when I started modding I read in the SkyUI description to put it very early in the install order.. I can't find that info anymore though. Maybe that was about load order and not install order?

 

But either way.. as time flows by we will have version 1.2.7. Until then.. I'll just wait it out.

Edited June 26, 2014 by blattgeist

[TheBloke]

Thats's what I think too. It's a general advice so that the majority of the people have no problems when sorting it exactly like the described it. But There should be zero problems from my understanding when putting mods above it that have no conflicts. And the Distant Decal Fix needs to go before USKP anyway.. loading it after USPs would mean overriden all the USP changes to the decals.

Good point re Distant - I am going to disable my copy completely until 1.2.7 is out.You're quite likely right that it's not a hard requirement having USKP at Prio 0, and that we can have no-conflicting mods above it.But as I can see no benefit, at least in my own load order, to having any non-conflict files before it, I am not going to. (I did have some conflicting mods before it, like Distant, so therefore I am just going to disable them for now.)Also bear in mind that we were talking about instructions to put on the STEP guide - which, like the changelog, needs to simple, generic, and very safe. So I think it should stick to the letter of what Tannin put in the changelog. It's probably fine for you personally to deviate from it (though I'd suggest doing some testing to be totally sure.) 

I believe that when I started modding I read in the SkyUI description to put it very early in the install order..

In the Plugin load order, yes. Any advice like that on the Nexus mod page will assume users use NMM, which doesn't even have a "mod order". Only a plugin order. And yeah the SkyUI.esp does go quite high in the Plugin order (LOOT puts mine at position #63, out of 250 total)But that doesn't mean it needs to be anywhere in particular in your mod load order. The only time that matters is when you have file conflicts. With SkyUI, you quite possibly have zero conflicts. I have one conflict in SkyUI, because I have the file Interface/Map.swf provided by "Colored Map Icons". So I just need to ensure that SkyUI is before Colored Map Icons; they could be Priority 0 and 1, or 500 and 501, doesn't matter where exactly because neither of them conflict with anything else. Edited June 26, 2014 by TheBloke

[blattgeist]

 

But that doesn't mean it needs to be anywhere in particular in your mod load order.

You are probably right about that... I think I can move SkyUI around a bit. At least putting it below USPs and the UHRP.

 

Come to think of it.. shouldn't we also mention (in the Step guide or so) that extracting the UHRP should be avoided too? I believe that the same rule about the USP fixing textures applies to the UHRP too. And UHRP should not be optimized because as EssArrBee mentioned these fixes could be reverted by an optimizer like SMCO.

 

Tannin only speaks about the USPs when avoiding to extract stuff.. but I believe the UHRP should not be extracted either.

 

 

 

Also bear in mind that we were talking about instructions to put on the STEP guide - which, like the changelog, needs to simple, generic, and very safe. So I think it should stick to the letter of what Tannin put in the changelog. It's probably fine for you personally to deviate from it (though I'd suggest doing some testing to be totally sure.)

You are right.. I was mainly asking for personal advice and forgot that we also talk about STEP settings.

 

 

Ok.. I'm off to bed now. Will check back tomorrow and see what has changed. Cheers, all.

Edited June 26, 2014 by blattgeist

[DoubleYou]

I see no reason to specifically say to avoid extracting UHRP. It's merely textures.

 

Let's leave this go until we can do something about it, which probably won't be until tomorrow. I think Tannin is asleep (and he should be), Nexus will not have the file available until who knows when, and it isn't going to be on Sourceforge any time soon. I think it is time for a nap.

[TheBloke]

Come to think of it.. shouldn't we also mention (in the Step guide or so) that extracting the UHRP should be avoided? I believe that the same rule about the USP fixing textures applies to the UHRP applies too.

I think that the STEP advice should be that none of the unofficial patches should have their BSAs extracted right now. USKP, UDGP, UDBP, UHRP. They should be installed with their ESP and BSA file, and the BSA should not be extracted for use in MO 1.2.6.

 

That's simplest, and it's least confusing because it exactly matches the changelog advice.

 

However, technically speaking I can't see why there's any problem extracting the BSA in UHRP. UHRP is the last mod in the official/unofficial sequence. The bug that remains in 1.2.6 is just that "BSAs provided by Non-MO mods cannot overwrite loose files"

 

This matters for extracting USKP, UDGP, and UDBP, because these appear before at least one Non-MO (official/DLC) mod. It does not matter for UHRP, because this appears after the last of the Non-Mo mods (it appears after HighResTextures*) and so the issue does not apply.

 

But on STEP I would keep things simple, and say don't extract any of them. It's not like it takes long to re-install UHRP with or without BSA extraction, so no big deal if someone re-installs it to get a version without extracted BSA, then reverses that after 1.2.7 is out.

Edited June 26, 2014 by TheBloke

[DoubleYou]

We will advocate no BSA extraction in 2.2.9 at all.

[kylhwch]

Are the official unofficial patches the only big mods we need to reinstall, or should we do it for others like Falskaar, too?

 

Should we just turn off BSA extraction?

[Octopuss]

I don't understand the changelog at all.

Make sure to load DLCs at the very top ELSE WHAT?

 

So this is bad?

[EssArrBee]

Are all your UPP BSAs packed? If not reinstall them and do not extract. Otherwise, you are fine.

[Neovalen]

Are all your UPP BSAs packed? If not reinstall them and do not extract. Otherwise, you are fine.

He will need to untick his vanilla/dawnguard/hearthfires/dragonborn texture optimizations no? Since they are likely loose files. At least until MO 1.2.7 makes the 100% fix.