Striker879

Better Cities has a reputation of lowering stability. I think to run it you need to really know how your machine reacts to heavy loads and understand the tools used to mitigate that lessened stability. I see you mention OBGE in your OP. Are you aware of Oblivion Reloaded - OBGE v4? It goes beyond graphics and includes some stability enhancing tweaks. It isn't for those afraid of reading documentation, has more things you can tweak than Carters has Little Liver Pills, but if you have the hardware for it (and I don't yet) it's the way to go. Not surprising you ran across me Googling as the "support staff" here for Oblivion have mostly moved on to other games/other pursuits. I probably have a text file somewhere with boilerplate for building a bashed patch, but usually I forget to go looking for my prepared texts and just wind up re-inventing the wheel time and again. It's perhaps a bit out of date vs the latest versions of WB, but there is Wrye Bash Pictotial Guide.

Seems to me you have good skills ... reading and interpreting mod comments is akin to knowing how to pan for gold (many may claim to know how but how many can actually show you their gold stash). Just because you see comments about problems doesn't necessarily mean the mod is problem ridden. I gauge the poster's qualifications, the resolutions offered by the mod author/mod users and then weigh that against whether or not I understood what the problem was and how the offered solutions worked to resolve them. Can't fix what you can't get your head around. Crashing on fast travel isn't uncommon. If you have a lot of script heavy mods there is a lot for the game to resolve in those few seconds that the next area is loading. Even without fast travelling you can run into situations where you crash when you try rounding that next bend (actually cross into that next cell). I recall once having a problem making it past that last bend in the road as you head down the hill and then into Bravil from the direction of the IC. When I took a long circuitous route around that corner and approached from the shore NE of the Bravil gate I saw that some traveling NPC was walking towards the IC along the road. I reloaded my save from before and just chilled where I was. Once the NPC went past me I was able to travel the rest of the way to Bravil no problem. Something about me approaching that NPC before he made it past Bravil got the game's shorts all bunched into a knot. Sometimes you've just got to take your lumps and move on.

I'm not familiar with all of those mods, but I do know I've seen comments on how it's OK to install KotN:R, Glenvar and Kvatch Rebuilt with a new game. I don't use many quest type mods myself and tend to waiting until I'm ready to start something before installing mods of that ilk. Most of my mods are gameplay changing type mods. When I was setting up my latest install following a hard drive failure I had a list of mods I wanted to try. By installing them one at a time and testing thoroughly in between I gained a good idea of how each affected both gameplay and stability. The other advantage of the one at a time method is you know exactly where to start troubleshooting if problems arise. The mantra for using WB and BOSS is always the same ... add/uninstall/change a mod, run BOSS from WB, rebuild your bashed patch and then start the game.

In my opinion using the bashed patch is a must, if only so that OCO v2 doesn't overwrite the corrections to NPC AI packages from the UOP (and OCO v2 will undo some of the UOP corrections without a bashed patch). If a mod isn't ticked in the Mods tab list it is ignored by WB when building the bashed patch (so having deactivated mods ... those with a blank box beside their ESP ... has no impact except they still count towards the game limit of 255 ESPs/ESMs in your Data folder). It's only for mods marked with the plus (+) signs you need to go through the extra steps before deactivating/uninstalling ... ones with just a check mark in the box can be simply unticked and then rebuild your bashed patch. Can't say whether or not you need a bashed patch for Better Cities ... don't use any of those. One thing to note is if you use Maskars Oblivion Overhaul (MOO) it's ESP needs to be kept below the bashed patch in your load order (WB will delete it's leveled list otherwise as they start out empty and then are populated after you start the game and WB deletes empty leveled list when building/rebuilding the bashed patch ... it ignores all ESPs placed lower than the bashed patch).

First off, most everything I know about using Wrye Bash I learned from reading the two readmes ... Wrye Bash General Readme.html and Wrye Bash Advanced Readme.html (both found in the Oblivion\Mopy\Docs folder). One thing I did find that was not readily apparent concerning mods that are deactivated and merged into the bashed patch (those mods that have the plus signs beside them in the Mods tab list) is how to deactivate those mods if you want to troubleshoot/uninstall them. What WB does when it deactivates and merges is basically move all of the deactivated and merged mod's content into the bashed patch. To deactivate and/or uninstall that mod you need to remove it from the bashed patch first. You do this by rebuilding the bashed patch and click off the Merge tag for that particular mod. When the bashed patch is done rebuilding then deactivate the previously merged mod in the Mods tab and again rebuild the bashed patch. You can now uninstall the mod if you wish, or if just troubleshooting run your test as the mod isn't part of your bashed patch any longer.

The saves folder is found in Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion for the more recent versions of Windows and is found in Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion for Windows XP. What are you trying to do?

I seem to recall reading that if Martin and your character get separated you should look for him in the city closest to where you last saw him. You could also try fast traveling and see if that gets him back with you (a method that works well if you lose track of your last ridden horse too). As always, make a save immediately before trying something so you have a fall back position (and never overwrite your saves ... always save in a new slot). I went through all the same things learning the leveling system (except in my case I also read up about it quite a bit at the UESP Wiki). It was a matter of finding what skills to put as majors that also allowed me to play without constantly worrying about skill points and leveling (and that will differ for each individual, according to how you play and what fighting style you prefer). I tend to be more mage than fighter after I've managed to get my Intelligence and Willpower to higher levels, but that's OK because early on I want to get my Strength and Endurance maxed anyway. So at the start I level Strength and Endurance skills that aren't majors (which is why Hand to Hand and Armorer are majors ... skills I can use when I want to and avoid without feeling I'm handicapped in any way) and initially Speed. I find the starting speed that your character runs way too slow, but I don't like my Speed to get much above the 60 to 65 range (my guy feels like some kind of jitterbug when his Speed gets too high ... I'll use the console to nerf it back down once it gets too high for my liking). After Speed gets to 55 I alternate between Intelligence skills and Willpower skills while still working Strength and Endurance to 100. Then it's Intelligence, Willpower and Agility until Intelligence and Willpower hit 100. I work Agility, Personality and Luck until Agility is maxed and only then do I start working Speed up as slowly as possible. I used the free armored nag as well (only free horse available to my guy without starting the Main Quest ... for my current character I'm using an alternate start mod and haven't even initiated the Main Quest yet). I also use Enhanced Economy and Basic Primary Needs, so it's a struggle just to keep my guy fed and find him a spot to sleep early in the game. I tend to play characters for well over 1000 hours so I'm not in any great hurry to level. Other people would rather get their character's level maxed as quickly as possible. The key is to find what works well for you, and when you find something you'd like to change look for a mod to help do that. - Edit - Another spot to check for Martin is the Tiber Septim Hotel in the Imperial City ... it's the game's "safe spot" where it defaults to when it can't figure out where to put something (which is why you'll sometimes run into some weird stuff when you walk in it's door).

I always find that this method works great. 1. Decide that you'd like to try modA. 2. Download it to a folder and extract the download. 3. Read all the documentation that comes with the mod (admittedly some mods are lacking in that department). 4. Read through the mod comments, looking for the problems reported. Look in the comments to see the type of solutions offered by the mod author/other users. Compare that advice to what I've learned about the mod. 5. If I understand what the problems were and how the solutions worked, install the mod. 6. Test the mod until I'm satisfied that it works well with my playstyle and works well alongside my other mods. Move on to modB, rinse and repeat as required.

Start the game (without Oblivion Reloaded if it is stopping the game from starting) and then make a save. Check your saves folder ... if OBSE is working you will see two saves with the same file name and different file extensions (e.g. MySave07.ess and MySave07.obse). If you are still seeing just one save file per save then OBSE isn't working. Confirm the prerequisites are working, then work on OR.

The only one I have ever heard of is called "Don't attack sheep and horses because you know it's an exploit" mod (it's more a behavior mod than a mod of Oblivion.esm, but on the bright side it's absolutely painless to install and uninstall as many times as you want). - Edit - And by the way, I'd be interested in knowing some of the details on your character's skill choices. I'm an old school vanilla leveling system type myself. My latest guy (Dunmer male ... I always play a Dunmer male) has a custom class with Armorer, Hand to Hand, Conjuration, Illusion, Mysticism, Acrobatics and Sneak as majors. The only change I'll make for next time is switch Alteration to a major in place of Acrobatics. You can't really control the skill advances in Acrobatics, but I find no difficulty in deciding when to use Alteration spells ... Realistic Fatigue + Basic Pysical Activities + Packdonkeys changes how you deal with encumbrance completely (thus I only very rarely use a Feather spell, in fact my guy doesn't have the spell and just carries a couple of the vanilla potions he's found during his travels along with a couple of scrolls from the same source).

No problem ... ran into a similar situation when I was beta testing a mod, so I recognized it right off.

So did you switch to regular HGEC textures?

Looks to me like shoes designed for a body other than HGEC. When Nuska did the OCO v2 HGEC compatibility textures she used that gray tone for the areas of the texture that fall outside of a properly textured HGEC mesh. If you compare the OCO v2 HGEC textures with HGEC textures from another source you'll see what I mean. What happens in a case like what you have using a regular HGEC texture is the part you have in gray will be the pink/skin tone that surrounds the part of the texture that maps onto the body part mesh, thus it's less noticeable that you have a mismatch. You will find that the foot looks just fine when the NPC/your character is naked.

I'm a total non-Skyrim type myself, but I see that both are from Arthmoor so I'd guess they are about as close to one another as two mods for two different games could be (they both are alt start mods after all). I can tell you from testing I've done in the MOE version that I use that Arthmoor knows his stuff. When you want to get the Main Quest started in MOE you need to use the console to step through some quest stages at the part just before the Emperor buys the farm (comments Arthmoor made in the Alternative Beginnings mod comments is what I used to figure out what was wrong and how to work around the problem). Haven't used Alternative Beginnings myself yet (maybe my next character) but I'm pretty sure you won't run into that kind of snafu in one of his mods.

MOE Main Quest Delayer with Alive Kvatch may be the one you're thinking of, however it requires a version of Kvatch Rebuilt that is no longer available (it needs Kvatch Rebuilt.esm and Kvatch Rebuilt.bsa from a version prior to that which is available for download today ... the new version doesn't have an ESM). The original version of MOE is available ... Modular Oblivion Enhanced PostFinal but in it Kvatch is closed. I currently use the version with Kvatch Alive so I can't say much about the original version. Another alternative is Arthmoor's Alternative Beginnings. It provides a whole host of different starts (how would you like to escape a sinking ship with just the clothes on your back for example). I believe there are some start options with it that will work with the newer version of Kvatch Rebuilt.

What do you use for sorting your load order (i.e. LOOT or BOSS)? - Edit - I recall reading a post some time back by Vorians regarding the load order for ClocksOfCyrodiil.esp vs the Better Cities ESPs (don't use either so I don't remember what was advised). If you disable the Clocks and the crashes stop you'll know where to start.

The game gets almost all of the assets it needs for displaying stuff in the game from compressed archives (the Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa etc. that you'll find in your Data folder). When the earliest modders tried replacing game assets (in particular textures) they found that the game would continue to use the old assets from the BSA files. So if you tried changing the vanilla green glass armor to red for example as a simple replacer it wouldn't work (in other words even if you put your textures in the exact directory path as the vanilla game expected it would still only display the green texture and not your red texture). What was needed was a way to invalidate the game's BSA assets if a replacement was available, hence archive invalidation. Various methods have been tried over the years. The early methods were unreliable and high maintenance. The recommended method these days is BSA Redirection. You do it once and then forget about it and it just works. Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) has a way to enable it but I'm not at all familiar with NMM. Oblivion Mod Manager also has a way to enable BSA Redirection (Utilities -> Archive Invalidation -> click on BSA Redirection -> click on Update Now). It also has a way to easily reset the BSA timestamps (useful if you use the Steam version of the game as Steam gave the vanilla game BSA files modern dates, thus breaking BSA Redirection for any mods older than the date they gave the BSAs ... BSAs should all be year 2006). An alternative way to fix the Steam BSA timestamps is with a utility like File Date Changer.

From the Oblivion Reloaded version 3.4 change log" "- Added "stay on target" system on combat" It should be documented somewhere how to disable it (could be I saw something mentioned in the OR mod comments not too long ago). Are you running BOSS using the button in the lower left of the Wrye Bash window? If not and you run it from say a desktop shortcut but have lock load order set in WB then it'll just revert the load order when you start it (you should see a notice that it has done so in that case though). - Edit - Have a look here (though you should still see if there's a way to keep the external camera and just disable the lock on option).

Finding out that the rabbit method of installing mods isn't so fast after all eh? Turtles will win everytime unless you know exactly what you are doing (i.e. one or a few mods at a time and then test). Troubleshooting problems that arise is a trivial matter when you only have one or a few mods to troubleshoot. In your case you lucked out ... read the documentation that came with Oblivion Reloaded and adjust your camera accordingly. You also may want to run your load order through BOSS (the preferred load order sorter for Oblivion). It'll clean up all your delinquent master problems (yes that load order is a mess).

If you use the Steam version of the game the BSA files timestamps have been changed to modern dates, thus breaking BSA Redirection. The simplest way to fix that problem is with Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM), but as I said the complication is that to do that with OBMM you are into it's archive invalidation utility and I think it will conflict with ArchiveInvalidated Invalidated. Uninstall ArchiveInvalidated Invalidated and use OBMM for both resetting the BSA timestamps and BSA Redirection (found off the Utilities menu button). Another possibility is ArchiveInvalidated Invalidated is conflicting with any archive invalidation from Mod Organizer (don't use it but I think I've read that MO includes an archive invalidation utility ... in which case again, ditch ArchiveInvalidated Invalidated). Mod Organizer isn't the ideal tool for Oblivion unless your are an experienced Oblivion modder (many things need to be done in a certain way to get them to work, for example OBSE and OBSE plugins). Unless you absolutely need the profiles for multiple concurrent characters I'd suggest OBMM or preferably Wrye Bash for use with Oblivion (WB is the more robust tool, and depending on which mods you decide on it will eventually become a necessity for it's bashed patch ... a Wrye Bash exclusive). - Edit - Two ways you can test if OBSE is working. One is simply make a save and then look in your saves folder. If you see two saves with the same file name but different extensions (e.g. MySave07.ess and MySave07.obse) then OBSE is working. You could also run OBSE Tester and it will report the version number of OBSE if it finds it working.

Not exactly what you are asking for, but sort of exactly what you are asking for ... Wearable Male Pants for females HGEC.

I'll be around most days for a while longer. Once spring gets here I'll be around less, but if you have a question either continue to use this thread or start a new one (a new thread will sometimes garner a wider audience). The BPA + BPN + RF combo may be an acquired taste, especially if you're a looting and toting fool like me. I use a couple of Packdonkeys for carrying around the stuff my guy needs plus the stuff he's going to sell. Enhanced Economy makes it tougher to get rich quick (and when coupled with BPN it makes it tough for you to find enough to eat early in the game ... I used all my previously gained tricks to keep enough groceries in the larder). By using an alternate start mod you don't have those convenient Oblivion Gates to provide a gold stream. The one I'm using right now requires a version of Kvatch Rebuilt that is no longer available (and I haven't heard of anyone using the latest version of Kvatch Rebuilt with it. When I finally decide to start a new character I'll use Alternative Beginnings with the new version of Kvatch Rebuilt. Before the latest forum update I used to prowl the mod discussion pages looking for problems to help solve. Now that there isn't a way to view just the pages for Oblivion mods that's pretty well fallen by the wayside except for a few mods that I still regularly check. These forum here are now the most likely to find help ... mod pages are mostly checked by the mod authors (while they're still active on the site) and maybe a few like me who still check certain mods.

TES4Edit ... I wouldn't clean the UOP. Some do clean the DLCs but I haven't myself (I do use the unofficial patches for them though, including the one for the Shivering Isles). I just use the vanilla UI along with HUD Status Bars (some would consider me pretty much an old stick in the mud type dinosaur though) and I only use it to keep track of some stats from some mods I use. It does have some options for Skyrimizing the UI if that's what you're after. Something to keep in mind if you are going to use Mod Organizer ... OBSE and OBSE plugins need to be installed in your actual game folders, not MO's virtual folders (or whatever it calls them ... obviously a non-MO type here as well). I'd suggest playing the vanilla game, at least for a little while. Everybody's different, and the things I wanted changed in gameplay may not be the same things you'd want. I use most of the Basic series by Maskar (not hygiene), along with Realistic Fatigue (makes a big difference in how you approach moving and carrying stuff in the game) as well as some individual mods that have a bit less scope in what they change. Better for you to see what bugs you, and then ask if there's anything that changes it. ArchiveInvalidated Invalidated uses the most recent and troublefree method of archive invalidation, BSA Redirection. Only caveat is now that you've done it, forget about it ... it's a do once and that's it solution. Just don't get talked into redoing it using a different tool (like Oblivion Mod Manager or Wrye Bash). They all accomplish the same thing but in slightly different ways and can clash with one another. If you use the Steam version of the game you may need to reset the vanilla game BSA files back to their original dates for BSA Redirection to work. Easy to tell if it's needed, just check the file date on Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa (found in the Oblivion\Data folder). If it's year is 2006 you're good to go, if not check back as the easy way to reset the BSA timestamps is also tied in with OBMM's utility for BSA Redirection so there's a chance of some tangles there. If changing the dates isn't required no sense in getting mixed up with OBMM.

Legendary ... oh oh, have you been stalking me? That post of yours did give me a good chuckle though ... a rare enough thing while I wait patiently for spring.

The Forgotten Chests of Pale Pass a non-journal quest you can do while doing Lifting the Vale for Countess Narina Carvain of Bruma. - Edit - LOL ... which category do I fit into??