Dangers of tweaking mods for personal use?

[kvngreeley]

Just a general question since I am still learning how mods work. And thanks to everyone for being so helpful and patient!

 

If I am tweaking new items in mods to fix issues with ground meshes, missing icons, errors in stats, excessively high stats, etc., are there any risks that I should know about?

 

Theskymoves helped open a door for me in resolving a previous ground mesh problem and now I want to tweak things as I discover them in testing. I know about cleaning the mod after, I have backups of the original files in case something goes wrong, and I think I know how to not change something that would promulgate throughout the game.

 

But I wonder if there could be things Iâm not aware of and should watch for. I have tweaked about 5 mods now and subsequent testing didnât reveal any problems.

 

So far, I have switched several item ground meshes, switched an icon, changed a naming mistake, changed a mistake in a value, and changed a mistake in an AR. These seem like innocent enough changes. I havenât touched NPCs or dialog and I donât know anything about scripts or stuff like that.

 

But I also have some cheat mods that I would like to scale back quite a bit. It also seems like you could tweak just about everything in a new item if there was a genuine reason and it was for personal use.

 

Is there anything I should be wary of? I am careful not to make any unintended changes, I clean the updated ESP after, I run MLOX again, and then I test the changes.

 

Thanks for any advice.

[Rabbit1251]

Doing it this way is a good way to learn. Keep a copy of the original file just in case you screw it up you can start your tweaking over again. I've used this method to alter another authour's mod to my own tastes. Just keep in mind that it's for your own use and don't post it without the original authour's permission.

 

 

The Rabbit

[kvngreeley]

Thanks and absolutely. Even with permission I would be afraid to post anything in case something was messed up and I didnât know it. I would rather give changes to the author, if they are still around.

 

However, I am capturing the exact steps for all of the changes I make on my mod tracking spreadsheet so anyone else can manually do the same thing, if they wanted.

 

Thanks again for responding!

[Oblivionaddicted]

Don't forget to use mod cleaners like Enchanted editor to cancel unwanted changes on the vanilla objects.

 

You should avoid editing mods after you started playing with them because it oftenly causes a lot of issues like some objects disappearing and others being doubled. When you edit a mod once you started playing, repairing the references in the mod and the save through Wrye mash can avoid you some problems.

Edited December 13, 2017 by Oblivionaddicted

[kvngreeley]

Thanks for that reminder! Currently, I am avoiding that by loading mods with my core test game save and then immediately saving as a working save. That way my core test game doesnât get changed by a mod unless I plan on keeping that mod as part of my core test game.

 

I also clean the updated mod with TESTool and run MLOX to update the load order before testing the changes.

 

Things have been going much smoother since I got my test save game to where I want it to be and then only test mods by adding one at a time and always creating a new test save to keep my core test save from being changed.

 

Thanks again!

[Oblivionaddicted]

TESTool and its merge stuff function sucks.

 

You should rather use Morrowind Enchanted Editor to clean mods.

 

When you want to get informations about a mod-specific object (cell's coordinates, object's editor ID etc) while playng use TES Advanced Mod Editor.

 

You should appreciate Wrye Mash to manage your mods and clean your saves and wrong references in your mods.

Edited December 13, 2017 by Oblivionaddicted

[kvngreeley]

Thanks again! I will try to learn how to use the Enchanted Editor. I stopped using TESTool to merge lists. I use Wyre Mash to merge lists now since I kept getting errors in TESTool. I pretty much only use TESTool to clean mods but if Enchanted Editor is better for that, then I want to learn to use it.

 

I have had problems cleaning saves in the past, but it was probably because I wasnât doing it right. I need to take more time to read up on more features of Wrye Mash, the CS, TESPCD, Enchanted Editor, etc.

 

Thanks!

[ZWolol]

10 years I use TESTооl only for cleaning of mods

I do not use the rest.

[kvngreeley]

Thanks for your comment on your experience! I havenât seen any problems with using it for cleaning either except for one stubborn ESP that wouldnât clean. But learning how to use other options seems like a good idea too.

 

Thanks again!

[Dragon32]

To be contrary, TESTool's Merged Objects function is wonderful. Its Merged Dialog function, however, shouldn't be used.