Wrye Bash - What to do with the bashed patch once created

[Agramar]

So I reached the 2.N Patches section of your awesome S.T.E.P. guide, and I just finished creating my bashed patch and it's loaded in MO and ticked.  But now I'm afraid I have some questions that are perhaps just ignorant, but I really need answers so I can understand my situation before I proceed.  If someone could just humor me, I would be most grateful.

 

1) What am I doing with this bashed patch?  Do I activate it in MO and keep all the mods I downloaded and installed in MO checked as well?

 

2) I guess my misunderstaning arises because, perhaps, I fundamentally don't understand what a bashed patch is.  From the description on the nexus I read this:

• It makes more mods compatible with each other by importing information from different mods into a "bashed patch"
• It allows you to exceed the 255 mod threshold by automatically merging mods for you

These two statements, lead me to believe that the bashed patch was some kind of a conglomeration of all the S.T.E.P. mods put together into a single ESP (once I had downloaded all the mods and loaded them into Wrye, that is).  However, the bashed patch file is only 18 kb, and elsewhere in this forum I read that someone said that all it does is combine "leveled lists", not everything.  If that's the case, how does it "allow you to exceed the 255 mod theshold"?  Doesn't it just become one more mod in my list of mods?

 

3) Why are Duel Sheath Redux, Better Shaped Weapons, and Fores New Idles in Skyrim from the S.T.E.P. guide installed AFTER the bashed patch is created and not before?  Shouldn't they be included in the bashed patch?

 

4) In another post someone said you could reuse the bashed patch for other profiles in MO.  But if I create another profile, and I want to base it on S.T.E.P. don't I need to also copy over all the mods from my Core S.T.E.P. profile too?  And when I add new mods to that profile and I run Wrye, does that mean I will end up having two bashed patches, or just one overwritten with new information?

 

5) At this point I feel, though the guide doesn't state it, that after the bashed patch stage, anytime I install a new mod in MO and I want to play Skyrim with it I need to run LOOT and then run Wrye Bash again.  Is that correct?  And does the bashed patch always need to be the final "mod" in MO (at the complete bottom of the list)?

Edited January 2, 2015 by Agramar

[Nozzer66]

1) Yes. The Bashed Patch should be in the Overwrite directory. Right click on that and create Mod. call it  Profile Name Bashed Patch or something like that. 

 

2) Essentially, yes you're right. It's a patch that fixes things like levelled lists so you dont run into a bandit at level 1 for example, who's dressed in full armour and wielding a magic weapon...

 

It helps with the 255 Threshold, because there are some plugins that WHOLLY roll into the Bashed Patch. You'll probably notice in Wrye Bash that there are some plugins that are not ticked/selected. They are those that have been merged fully into the patch.

 

3) No, because they all need to see a full list of mods for their java proccers to be able to make their actual mod esp files.

 

4) If you create another profile in MO for Skyrim, and copy an old one over, yes it will have the same bashed patch. However, you should remake it if/when you change the mods in that profile. You essentially have 2 different bashed patches. You'd give it a different name like ThisProfile Bashed Patch versus ThatProfile Bashed Patch, etc.

 

5) Yes, IF the mod is something that has a plugin. Many mods that are just some texture replacers don't have an ESP, and you wont need to remake the patch. The bashed patch should be close to last, with the exception of anything made via a java proccer, like Dual Sheath for example.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Nozzer66

[Agramar]

Thanks for your help!  I was able to get past that hurdle because of you.  And thanks everyone for the awesome S.T.E.P. guide.  It's been an enormous help.