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[WIP] Mator Smash


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kWdBG.jpg

 

Mator Smash

VIDEO TUTORIAL - For v0.0.7

GamerPoets Video - For v0.4.1

 

 

Mator Smash is now available on Nexus Mods. 

Nexus Mods Mod Page

 

 

As of v1.0.0, Mator Smash has a "Quick Patch" button

As of v0.5.1, Mator Smash will copy records with "errors" in them (such as unresolved/unexpected references)

As of v0.5.0, Mator Smash has new algorithm features and is more stable.

As of v0.4.1, Mator Smash merges redundant plugins properly.

As of v0.4, Mator Smash now produces complete record prototypes

As of v0.3, Mator Smash supports Fallout 4 and Skyrim SE

As of v0.2.2, Mator Smash allows you to modify tags on plugins from within the program.

As of v0.2.1, Mator Smash has Smash Settings for Skyrim for every Bash Tag Wrye Bash offered for Oblivion.

 

Changelog:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Purpose
Mator Smash is an application built on the xEdit framework developed to replace the primary functionality of Wyre Bash - the creation of patch files to combine (or merge) conflicting overrides to overcome Bethesda's "Rule of One". Wyre Bash used to provide this functionality in the days of Oblivion through the usage of bash tags, keywords that would be put in the description of the mod that would then tell Wyre Bash what types of records it should try patching. However, the current status is that Wyre Bash only provides this for a handful of record types for Skyrim, and this has been the case for quite a while now. There are several users (most notably Sharlikran) who have been working to update Wyre Bash's codebase to work with Skyrim, but it's been an uphill battle. As of now, it's not certain whether Wyre Bash will ever offer the same functionality it did in the days of Oblivion for Skyrim mods. That's where Mator Smash comes in.

 

Why is this necessary?
As per Skyrim's "Rule of One", any two mods that modify the same record but in different ways will conflict with each other in a way that can't be resolved asides from the creation of a compatibility patch. Because the number of Skyrim mods exceeds 40,000, there is no conceivable way to manually build enough compatibility patches to make every possible load order (or even a small fraction of them) work with each mod operating as intended. Mator Smash automates the most important part of the task of compatibility patch creation - the combining of conflicting edits. This is something that we've been needing for a very, very long time.

 

How does it work?
Warning: technical jargon ahead. Where Wyre Bash has separate procedures for the patching of individual record types, Mator Smash has a few generic procedures for the patching of ALL record types. This means that Mator Smash has, with very little development effort, achieved the capacity to patch more records than Wyre Bash has ever been capable of patching. This is achieved through a recursive traversal method which traverses override record structure, comparing subrecords between a master record, a source override record, and a destination override record. Upon the basis of this comparison, certain subrecords are written to the destination record while others are skipped and others are deleted from it.

 

Development Status
I began development of Mator Smash as a standalone application built on top of the xEdit API 10/18/2015. Here's the GitHub repository. Check out the design folder in the repository for various files relating to my design process. I'll be live streaming most of my development on livecoding.tv. I'll be streaming mainly on weekends 9:00AM-9:00PM PST. Because of major code reuse from merge plugins standalone, smash will be entering public beta very soon.

Mator Smash is currently available as a proof of concept script (which is slow and lacking in features/a clean user experience). You can download v0.9.4 of that script here. This script can currently correctly patch a massive number of different types of records. FAR MORE than Wyre Bash or any other currently available solution, and more than any solution that has ever existed for Skyrim or any other game.

 

Implemented Features

  • Dynamic, flexible settings: Smash settings are comprised of a tree which has information on how records/subrecords should be handled. This will allow users to control how a patch is created on a per-subrecord basis. This will make smash relevant regardless of the nature of the mods being patched, or the game the mods come from. Each node (record/subrecord) will have the following data associated with it-
    • Process: Whether or not smash should process this node and perform conflict resolution for it if a conflict is found.
    • Preserve Deletions: If a mod deletes an element inside of this node, that deletion will be preserved in the generated patch.
    • Treat as single entity: If a mod overrides any subrecord in this node, the entire node will be replaced with that mod's version of it.
    • Chaining: Linking allows you to copy multiple side-by-side elements when any one of those elements changes.
    • Override Deletions: Allows a plugin to restore deleted elements.
    • Force Value: Forces values from a particular plugin to be used, and only allows plugins which require this plugin to perform further conflict resolution on affected records.
  • Tags: As of v0.2.1, all Bash tags that were offered with Wrye Bash for Oblivion are now available for Skyrim.  Smash will automatically detect tags and apply smash settings to the plugins that have them, assuming you have smash settings that correspond to the tags.
  • Managed smashed patches: Patches you build will be tracked in the program, so you can quickly and easily rebuild them when your load order changes. You can also have multiple patches for your load order, if you feel that is desirable.
  • Multi-language support: I built a really clean, extensible, and easy to use language system when I developed Merge Plugins Standalone. Smash will use the same language system to support multiple languages out-of-the-box. As a translator, all you have to do is make a text file to create a translation and have users install it in their lang folder. The rest is handled by the program.
  • Fast and easy setting creation: Select some plugins to build a setting to specifically handle the conflicts they are capable of creating in a load order.  Toggle or set flags for multiple nodes at once.  Select similar nodes in a setting tree.  Conflict resolution has never been quite so powerful, flexible, and easy.

 

Planned Features

Smash is now pretty much feature complete.  Further development energy will be spent on porting it to a zEdit application mode, zSmash, which will include a new, streamlined workflow.

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Recommended Posts

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Posted

What did I say in the other thread, as soon as a bug is reported a fix comes within hours! (In this case minutes!)

 

I am very much looking forward to see where this ends up. As much as I like WB, and I do, to be able to ditch it and just use a simpler purpose built tool is going to be a godsend.

 

Time to head over to your GitHub repo and clone myself a copy.

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Posted (edited)

Testing... will edit.

 

EDIT: Yeah, something seems to be up.  I'll do some more testing and fix this by the end of the day.  Not sure how big the problem is right now.

 

EDIT 2: Actually, I got things to work fine when I made sure to use the settings as specific settings - not global.  That does imply that the global setting may be broken though, so I'll have to check that out.

 

ARMO

gIc9F.png

 

WEAP

gIcbq.png

Edited by Mator
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Posted (edited)

Ok, global setting subrecordMode fixed.  v0.9.2 is here.

Will now tackle the issues with element duplication in unsorted arrays.

Edited by Mator
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Posted (edited)
  On 3/20/2015 at 6:07 PM, hellanios said:

Time for a stupid question,can this be used insted of a bashed patch?I'm interested in using it in FO3.

People keep asking this.  As is stated in the OP, this replaces bashed patch functionality and does more.  The answer is yes.

I don't know exactly what the differences between FO3 and TES5 plugins are, so you may have to toy around to find the right setting for record/subrecord exclusion to keep your game stable.

You may also want to skip certain DLC plugins that aren't automatically skipped via changing the setting on them to "skip".

Edited by Mator
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Posted (edited)
  On 3/20/2015 at 7:05 PM, gpthree said:

Is the mteFunction.pas file the same one thats in your latest Merge Script download? Which one should I overwrite?

Ask yourself-

 

Which was updated last?

Answer: Mator Smash.  (so use the one from Mator Smash)

 

You can also open the mteFunctions.pas file in a text editor and read the third line to see when it was edited.  The one in Mator Smash says:

  Quote

{

  matortheeternal's Functions

  edited 3/19/2015

 

whereas the one packaged with Merge Plugins says

  Quote

{

  matortheeternal's Functions

  edited 3/9/2015

Edited by Mator
  • 0
Posted

well I decided to give this another go because I had a random small LO and figured why not. There is the same issue where some keywords are being ignored from the Unofficial Patches which you may already know about but here is some images...

19Br0id

19Bs2uu

19BsJUF

1CKJoQY

 

Also is has some identical records.

19Bt6P9

19BthtO

19BtFIB

 

And some random Dialog Topics...

1CKJbgG

 

This is also interesting...

1CKJubt

The random Log Entry seems to be a duplicate of the one above.

1CKJPuI

 

 

Hmm, I wouldnt treat the Texture Lighting and Tint Layers as separate records but forward them as one.

1CKK0pX

 

I know I can set up some rules but I wanted to try everything on default.

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Posted
  On 4/1/2015 at 3:55 AM, hishutup said:

well I decided to give this another go because I had a random small LO and figured why not. There is the same issue where some keywords are being ignored from the Unofficial Patches which you may already know about but here is some images...

Was aware of the MODS alternate texture element not conflict resolving, but not of the VendorItemFoodRaw keyword not conflict resolving. Will need to investigate that with heavy logging. I don't see anything wrong in the third screenshot.

 

  On 4/1/2015 at 3:55 AM, hishutup said:

Also is has some identical records.

ITPO. Well aware of this. I know why it happens, how users can remove it, and how I could remove them automatically after patching if I wanted to. Don't know how to detect them before patching yet.

 

  On 4/1/2015 at 3:55 AM, hishutup said:

And some random Dialog Topics...

When the TIFC - Info Count subrecord is skipped those will... not disappear. Again, issue with ITPO stuff.

 

  On 4/1/2015 at 3:55 AM, hishutup said:

This is also interesting...

 

The random Log Entry seems to be a duplicate of the one above.

Looks like an issue with GetMasterElement or with non-identical SortKeys. Will have to investigate further.

 

  On 4/1/2015 at 3:55 AM, hishutup said:

Hmm, I wouldnt treat the Texture Lighting and Tint Layers as separate records but forward them as one.

 

I know I can set up some rules but I wanted to try everything on default.

There is no "forward as one" logic anywhere in Mator Smash yet.

 

Rules- you would probably skip certain records/subrecords via rules to resolve some of these problems.

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Posted

I've just tried 0.9.4 on my mediocre load order consisting of 140ish plugins.

Smashing complete.  1569 records smashed.
Completed in 624.559 seconds.

It's not even too slow.

 

The only thing I possibly don't like is how some of the text in drop down menus gets cut off. It says default with uns-something. Not like it's a big deal because I don't even understand what's all this about though :P

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