Masters out of Order?

[Nudedragon]

I've been wondering, is there a danger to having a plugin's masters out of order? I know it's not as bad as missing masters, but could it still cause a CTD?

[Octopuss]

I'd like to bump this, because it's an interesting question I couldn't find an answer to anywhere.

[lhawke]

It depends I guess. I know it can cause CTD. Why not just let boss sort them out?

[chanchan05]

@lhawke - BOSS cannot sort out of order masters. BOSS can't even detect it. BOSS sometimes causes it. Basically, after you BOSS your load order, sometimes a mod's masters are not sorted. Let's say Fishbiter's SkyRexSandsofTime patch. Inside the mod, the masters are sorted like this:

 

Skyrim.esm

Dawnguard.esm

SandsofTime.esp

SkyRe.esp

 

Which is how BOSS orders it. However, the author of SoT recommends that his mod be placed as low in the load order as possible (must come before reproccer, but all follower mods, NPC mods, weapon and armor mods, bashed patch, etc must come before it). So what happens is, following the author recommendation, your load order becomes

 

Skyrim.esm

Dawnguard.esm

SkyRe.esp

SandsofTime.esp

 

 

Opening WyreBash, you will see the SkyRexSoT patch to be colored orange, referring to out of order masters.

 

AFAIK, there's no real problem, and I haven't experienced any. However, to be on the safe side, I just open up the mod in TESVEdit and sort it's masters. It's pretty easy actually. Load the mod (just the mod, all other plugins should be unchecked), it will automatically call for it's masters. Once finished, right click the mod and select "sort masters", Voila, the masters are sorted and the mod is green in WyreBash.

[EnaiSiaion]

You can load masters in a different order and suddenly every mod has the wrong order and the game doesn't kersplode. Makes no difference.

[lhawke]

@lhawke - BOSS cannot sort out of order masters. BOSS can't even detect it. BOSS sometimes causes it. Basically, after you BOSS your load order, sometimes a mod's masters are not sorted. Let's say Fishbiter's SkyRexSandsofTime patch. Inside the mod, the masters are sorted like this:

 

Skyrim.esm

Dawnguard.esm

SandsofTime.esp

SkyRe.esp

 

Which is how BOSS orders it. However, the author of SoT recommends that his mod be placed as low in the load order as possible (must come before reproccer, but all follower mods, NPC mods, weapon and armor mods, bashed patch, etc must come before it). So what happens is, following the author recommendation, your load order becomes

 

Skyrim.esm

Dawnguard.esm

SkyRe.esp

SandsofTime.esp

 

 

Opening WyreBash, you will see the SkyRexSoT patch to be colored orange, referring to out of order masters.

 

AFAIK, there's no real problem, and I haven't experienced any. However, to be on the safe side, I just open up the mod in TESVEdit and sort it's masters. It's pretty easy actually. Load the mod (just the mod, all other plugins should be unchecked), it will automatically call for it's masters. Once finished, right click the mod and select "sort masters", Voila, the masters are sorted and the mod is green in WyreBash.

You are very correct. I'm just distracted with my created mod myself. -sigh- I swear I'll never get her to work right.

[Hyacathusarullistad]

What about when a mod's masters are loading in the order a plugin expects, but said plugin still appears orange in Wrye Bash? I have it happening with a handful of plugins, and can't for the life of me figure out why. It's not lead to any problems as such, but the why is driving me up the wall.

[chanchan05]

@Hyacanthusarullistad - then it's a different problem. Orange in WyreBash means there's something wrong with that plugin's position or something. Go look at the documentation.

[Hyacathusarullistad]

I have, and it's been very little help unfortunately. I'm still unclear on one thing. Can Wrye recognise if one of a file's masters has been altered, or does it just look at the file names? For example, say I have a mod dependant on Cloaks.esp from Cloaks of Skyrim. Complete Crafting Overhaul Remade replaces Cloaks.esp with its own edited version; could Wrye recognise that the Cloaks.esp being loaded is not the one that said mod was dependant on, and be trying to warn me?

[Lord Garon]

I have run into this, as a player only, with "replacer" esp mods installed after a dependent mod was already in. BASH doesn't flag an error on the Mods tab, although it DOES recognize the replacer esp as different from the original in BAIN (Installers tab). I think that's because BAIN computes a unique CRC on all the package files. From the Mods tab Masters perspective, the dependent plugin's File Header only seems to list filenames and not any unique signatures, so it sees the replacer esp as equivalent to the original esp.

 

I don't mean to second-guess you, but BASH usually has a reason for flagging errors. You're saying the load order numbers are the same on each row for both MI and Original LO in the Master's list, but the plugin shows an orange box. Correct?

Edited May 1, 2014 by Lord Garon