BSA Extraction, is it done at all opportunities it is offerred?

[GrantSP]

Since the guide says to set MO to offer BSA extraction upon mod installation, am I to conclude that it should be done on all opportunities that it is presented?

 

I am only into the UI section and I am installing JIP Companions, and there is no recommendation in the guide as to what option.

 

Upon further opportunities will it always be the same answer as whichever choice is for this one? ie, do I always extract if not given specific advice or do I not extract unless told to?

[Kelmych]

The guide says to enable BSA extraction so it can be used, and I discussed the issues with extraction in the BSAs and Mod Organizer section. Ideally none of the BSAs would need to be extracted, but currently there is a limit on how many unextracted BSAs can be used. In Fallout 3 this limit is based, unfortunately, on the total character count of the BSA file names. I didn't provide a recommendation on exactly which ones to extract since the recommendation might be different based on a users list of mods.  Personally I don't extract any of the vanilla BSAs or the one in the Updated Unofficial patch, and I then try leaving some other large BSAs unextracted until I hit the problem where the game won't start using MO. You won't find any significant problems extracting almost all or even all the BSAs, but there is a slight performance improvement to leaving as many BSAs unextracted as possible.

[Nozzer66]

I never extract Vanilla BSAs. (Well unless I decide I'm going to DDSOpt stuff. Haven't done that yet for FO3, though)  I always do the small ones. Usually ones for things like UI etc are only small ones. If any big mod has a BSA I leave it alone.

 

The only time that MIGHT change is if MO's throwing a conflict I don't like the look of. If the offending files are in a BSA I'll extract that.

 

As a word to the wise, I once tried extracting the DC Interiors BSA. I killed stuff, bad. Leave that one alone. :)

Edited January 17, 2015 by Nozzer66

[GrantSP]

All that you have just said is made quite clear in your guide, no issue with the mechanics or benefits of BSA extraction, I was just expecting to see some text describing the preferred option for each mod installation, in those "Installation: " sections.

 

Not to worry, I'll just make my own judgement call and if I get any issues I'll re-evaluate those specific mods. Thank you.

[Kelmych]

I'll add a list of the BSAs I leave unextracted to the guide.