Striker879

Document, document, document!! The most boring tedious part of modding is your best friend. Should have seen me trying to remember all the changes I made to Personality Idles when I installed the author's latest version (losing all my homegrown edits of course). I now have a text file itemizing the edits. That is far more reliable than counting on that gray lump sitting on my shoulders when crunch time comes. So I take it all is rosy in Red Rose Manor now?

And if your game and CS are installed in the default C:\Program Files directory you'll want to uninstall and re-install to somewhere like C:\Games\Oblivion.

I'm certainly no scripter, but when you say you rotated the heading marker to fix problem 'A' I'm wondering if her attention focus is now facing the wrong direction so that she doesn't 'see' that the player is there?

Something that comes to mind is have you pathgridded the new building? Are the normal NPCs just the basic NPC from the CS with no AI packages? I'm 'Mr Slow and Methodical' (a speciality of mine). After I've created a new NPC by copying an existing one and giving it a new ID I strip out all the AI packages before dropping them into their new home in the CS. I save, load my mod and go to their location and check them out, looking for stuff like buried in the floor up to the ankles or floating above the ground. As I add content to their AI packages I play test at every major juncture (e.g. if I add a sleep package I follow them around and make sure it's working before I add a wander around town or go to the chapel type). I also avoid any attempts at randomizing their routines until after I'm satisfied with the non-randomized schedule. That's part of why it takes me eons to get much done.

Your experience with the marker sort of mirrors my own with the Aranmathi exterior edits (mine involved raising the exterior so a stairwell didn't have water at the bottom). Save games hold certain information, one of which is places and some things your character has found. In my case the location of the door into Aranmathi along with the entrance marker. In my long time character's save game the door and marker are still at the old elevation, even though in the CS they are shown at their new elevation. When I go there with a new character the door and marker are at the new elevation. In my case everything works acceptably in my old character's save game so I've left it. To get it looking correctly would require a clean save, which would mean I'd need to clear out all the stuff I've dragged in there and placed in containers etc in-game. For me it wasn't worth the hassle, but in your case it's worth a try. Exit the area of both mods and make a save (preferably go to an interior cell not related to either mod). Exit the game, and deactivate Red Rose Manor. Load your save and accept the prompt about that save requiring missing content. Save again without Red Rose active in your same interior spot. Exit the game, reactivate Red Rose Manor, load your save and go to the new location at Glenvar and see if all is well. If so take all the rope in your house and put it back into storage, and I'll be dropping by to return the borrowed rope.

Hard drive space is cheap. When I download, I download to my OblivionDownloads folder, each mod to it's own subfolder. I do a copy and paste of the mod particulars (author, uploader, version, Nexus link, description and file details) to a text file that goes into the folder. The archive gets extracted and examined in that same folder. Whether I use a manual install or OMOD all of the files remain in that download folder as backup. If a newer version comes out it gets a new subfolder in the previous version's folder. Ya, I'm an archivist (some might describe me with another word starting with 'a').

I doubt you'll ever see it in a downloadable form. There's nothing sophisticated about it. I just add NPCs to the player owned houses and give them 'lives' using AI packages. They'll wander about town, go to the chapel, pop into the inn for a meal or drink and stuff like that. It was mostly an exercise I used last winter to develop some familiarity with the CS. If I get my butt in gear and start to learn quests and scripts this winter I'll initially use it as a training field. If I have any success I have some ideas for mods I'd like to explore. Those might wind up being of downloadable calibre ... we'll see if I get my head around scripting. The quest tutorials I've read seem straight forward enough, it's scripting that will be my biggest hurtle.

I currently use neither Wrye Bash or TES4Edits. Those are on my list of things to get around to using this winter. The majority of the mods I use are either home grown (my 'over populating Cyrodiil' project) or ones that add armor/clothes, replace animations, a couple that add new homes and a couple of companion mods. None require the use of a bashed patch (the most common reason for installing Wrye Bash, but not the only reason). I follow a lot of threads on various issues here, and did see a lot of issues arising from the non-Python version of Wrye Bash when it was first released (I believe that is the 'standalone' version you refer to). I haven't seen much around that issue more recently. The Python versions of Wrye Bash are more particular in how you install them, and I believe that the full install instructions aren't available until after you've run the install program if you opt for the installer version. The download page now includes this link which has install instructions if you scroll down or use the links on the page. It looks very complicated and intimidating (which it is), but it is the Swiss Army Knife of Oblivion. Another useful link, that is now included on the download page is the Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide.

My thinking when I asked the question was whether your issue stemmed from having the custom race NPC in the building. As far as I know, to get assets (like a custom race) from mod A to work in your mod you'd need to fool the game into thinking the esp you are getting the custom race from is actually a master (esm file). Wrye Bash and TES4Edit have ways of doing this. The Construction Set Wiki has this De-Isolation Tutorial on the subject.

All I've ever done is to click the persistent reference box and assign a custom AI sleep package that directs them to that bed. Occasionally an NPC will surprise me and go use another bed even though their's is unoccupied (at least in my personalized Aranmathi Ayleid Home). I just put it down to they're having a bad day with their roommates or want a change of scenery. I have found that Vilja can sometimes be picky about her bed. Emma and CDCooley are very diligent at answering questions in the Companion Vilja mod comments ... I'd ask for Vilja specific instructions there.

Have you tried the door without the custom race person? That would be my first troubleshooting step.

If you have other mods installed that also use bsa files for their resources then yes, you would replace those bsa files from either backup or the downloaded and extracted archive. If you were running a vanilla game plus ONLY those mods that come with a bsa file you wouldn't need any form of archive invalidation. Oblivion would find it's vanilla resources in it's own bsa files and your mods that come with a bsa would find theirs in their own bsa files. When you install mods that add new content to the game (e.g. shiny armor that wasn't included with the vanilla game) the resources are installed into your Oblivion\Data folder according to the folder structure required by the game (i.e. mesh nif files in Data\meshes, texture dds files in Data\textures etc.). Again, no form of archive invalidation is required because the game is instructed by the mod's esp where to find the resources (i.e. Data\meshes\armor\MyShinyNewArmor\shiny_cuirass.nif). Where some form of archive invalidation is required is when the mod is a replacer (i.e. doesn't come with an esp). Because the game will continue to load the vanilla version of what the mod wants to replace from the vanilla bsa files, some way of getting it to find the new resources is required. One way involves actually altering the bsa files (BSA Alteration) where the other does it by instructing the game to look for newer files with the same name and directory structure (BSA Redirection). Because you have used BSA Alteration in the past your bsa files are no longer the same as they were when installed. This includes your mod added bsa files. Because the bsa files would normally only be changed by Bethesda during an upgrade patch (for vanilla bsa files) or by the mod author for a mod update (in the case of mod added bsa files) there should be no problem with you restoring your bsa files to original using your vanilla backups and the mod download extracted archive. I personally don't like overwriting files. I either move the files to a new location (i.e. my Backups folder) or delete the old file before copying into the old folder (which in the case of bsa files would be Oblivion\Data\*.bsa). I would move all the bsa files in my Oblivion\Data folder that I had replacements for and then copy and paste in the replacements. You could do it piecemeal, one bsa at a time until you get all your issues resolved if you prefer. As you're only replacing existing bsa files with one that should work, I wouldn't think a new bashed patch should be required, but Hickory's the big dog around here when you get talking about Wrye Bash.

Are you using a freshly downloaded copy of Red Rose and still running into this? When I'm replacing any files I always delete or move the old file to backup before I copy the new file (i.e. I don't overwrite, but I'm just particular that way ... or maybe some would say peculiar).

When my list of old saves gets too long I'll delete a bunch, but the game will save to \Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves in Vista and Win 7 (and in \Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves for old Win XP dinosaurs like me) which is located on your C drive. My C drive is 138Gb with 118Gb of free space. I have separate hard disks for programs and games so other than a few utilities that like being installed on C drive and my Oblivion saves not much uses up that free space ... consequently I don't clean house very often. I just did a check and I have over 1200 saves at the moment. Maybe I shouldn't wait for spring to get out the broom! I'd suggest keeping some old saves as a fall back for if you run into trouble after installing a mod for example. You probably don't need to be a packrat like me however.

Or what about a Lesser Power spell? One to disable, one to re-enable after the mod is installed (in enabled state of course).

On the corrupt save issue, always save using the Esc key menu (not QuickSave) and don't overwrite a previous save. Only load from an AutoSave when necessary (if you leave that option enabled ... I do because sometimes I've forgotten to save in a while and don't want to redo too much). The other reliable save method is using the console for named saves (the command is 'save <MySaveName>' without the quote marks or arrows). A lot of people use Streamsave, I personally don't. I used to have pretty regular crashes to desktop back when I Quicksaved and overwrote my old saves. It took a while, but once I started using this 'cleaner' save method my crashes are so seldom that I've gotten used to not saving frequently (which sometimes leads to me needing to load an Autosave). Crashes are a 'feature' of the game, but frequent crashes aren't a 'required feature'.

All that BSA Redirection is doing is getting the game to look outside the registered bsa files for individual assets. If you downloaded a steel armor replacer for example it will place it's meshes in Oblivion\Data\meshes\armor\steel\m and Oblivion\Data\meshes\armor\steel\f in your game install folder (so the entire path might be C:\Games\Oblivion\Data\meshes\steel\...). When the game wants to display some steel armor it's going to look in the file Oblivion - Meshes.bsa for the meshes to use for steel armor (within the bsa it will look for meshes\armor\steel\... as the specific path, all the compressed files in the bsa are organised as though they were installed on a hard drive uncompressed and the game expects certain type of files to be in specific folders and subfolders e.g. nif files will be in a subfolder off meshes). If you don't have BSA Redirection activated then when you download your steel armor replacer and install the meshes in C:\Games\Oblivion\Data\meshes\armor\steel the game will still display the vanilla steel armor because it will load the nif files registered for steel armor from the Oblivion - Meshes.bsa file. BSA Redirection changes that so that the game will now look for newer files located in C:\Games\Oblivion\Data\meshes\armor\steel and use them if they are a direct replacement for files that could have been loaded from the bsa. What has happened in your case is that BSA Alteration has actually changed some of those compressed files in the bsa files. I believe if the changes are dated after the dates for replacement files from your downloaded mods then you're going to have the missing meshes issue even after you switch to BSA Redirection. If you simply replace the vanilla bsa files with your backups you should be getting everything back to normal. Backing up your original bsa files ... a very wise move and one I'm doing right now myself (just make sure the backup is outside your Oblivion\Data folder so the game can't see them). :thumbsup:

With high aggression the disposition would be an issue, as when aggression is higher than disposition an NPC will fight you (or whoever they have a lower disposition towards).

As far as I know any mods you want to edit with the CS need to have the esp located in the Oblivion\Data folder. That Data folder is kind of special to the game. The paths it looks for different types of assets are all hard coded into the game engine (which is why the common mistake of pasting a meshes folder into a meshes folder so that you have Oblivion\Data\meshes\meshes\MyArmor will always result in missing meshes for a mod installation ... the game looks in Oblivion\Data\meshes but can't find the MyArmor folder and so won't display the meshes). The game also loads all of the assets located in Oblivion\Data at startup, so even unticked esp files and meshes and textures from deactivated mods that have had their esp removed but not the nif and dds files are loaded. I have a Backup folder that's completely outside my Data folder for that reason. What I'm leading up to here is I don't see any reason that making a copy of Red Rose Manor's esp and renaming it will have any consequences provided you locate your backup copy of the original outside your Data folder. If the original Red Rose isn't in the Data folder the game or CS won't find it. Now whether that will make any difference to your problem is another matter, but you won't know if you don't try. As for the which mod to edit issue, an esp is simply recording the changes that have been made to a master file (the esm that's listed when you make a mod active in the CS, normally Oblivion.esm). An esp can't make changes to another esp and have the game find the changes. The game loads the esm masters, then esp files and alters what it has in memory from the masters based on the edits recorded in the esp and associated with it's registered master. The smoke and mirrors that Wrye Bash and TES4Edit use are to get around this master must be an esm situation. In your case it's figuring out which esp should be esmified and which should be edited is the big brain problem. Perhaps using Red Rose as the esmified master but recording your edits in your own MyRedRose.esp is the answer, so that MyRedRose.esp is recording the changes you've made to Red Rose and all you use Glenvar for is the cell number and x y z coordinates to locate the Red Rose exterior. The other caveat I have to offer is, has the cell for Glenvar been renamed (in other words, in the CS does the cell it sits in come up as Wilderness cell such and such or does it come up as Glenvar such and such). The reason I ask is that one way of getting around extensive landscaping (an onerous task, believe me) is to replace a wilderness cell with a 'redirect' to a new cell that's easy to edit (probably not the correct term as memory is sometimes patchy but the concept is solid). If Glenvar has done this then you can't simply drop Red Rose at coordinates x y z in Wilderness cell such and such and have it appear when Glenvar is loaded. You'll be able to tell by loading Glenvar in the CS and seeing what the cell name comes up as. The Aranmathi I've tweaked has it's exterior located in a vanilla wilderness cell, so any edits I've done to the exterior are done by loading the correct wilderness cell, not a special AranmathiExterior cell. While your goal may be simple, you're probably getting the idea that achieving it may not be so simple. You may also be getting a notion of why I avoid sharp tools ... they can do more damage (now where did that finger drop when I 'trimmed' it).

I think you'd have Glenvar as the active file left as an esp and Red Rose as the esmified master while you're editing Glenvar, but keep in mind we're venturing far outside the stone tools here, into the world of sharp knives, maybe even power tools. Any ideas I'm offering stem from reading about vs. doing. The problem I foresee about trying to do what you're asking this way is that I believe that Red Rose would always need to be installed after that for your edited Glenvar to work. I think you can get away with only having it installed as normal in your Data files but not activated in the launcher Data Files for the exterior part to show at Glenvar. That would give you only one Red Rose in Tamriel but no interior etc. If you have Red Rose activated in Data Files you'll have two Red Rose exteriors unless you can delete the one in the original Red Rose and use the one in your edited Glenvar AND not break the interior and quests for Red Rose. We're talking about stuff way above my pay grade here.

My own tinkering with other's work in the CS has been more in the line of changing some animations in Personality Idles - Modified Version NPCs and Companions and personalizing the interior of Aranmathi Ayleid Home. I also do quite a bit of mixing and matching bodies in BBB Designer Body Spell, but the CS isn't needed for that, just alternate bodies that are compatible with the mod's originals. Like I say ... stone tools and sharp sticks. I'm not sure the combining mods as done in the conventional sense would achieve what you were originally after. Using tools like Wrye Bash and TES4Edit you can merge more than one compatible mod to save on the number of mods the game needs to load (there is a limit of 255 mods). Using those tools you aren't moving the location of any assets (example the chests that armor mods commonly add to the game so you can get the new stuff), just making a single mod out of more than one similar mod. What you are wanting to do, move the cell a mod's exterior is located in goes beyond those simpler merges. Err ... I was wondering if you'd do me a bit of a favour? I've got a project that requires a large amount of rope. I couldn't borrow all the rope you have in the house by any chance? Just until this current situation is resolved. :thumbsup:

I would think that only bsa files that were touched by mods you've installed while BSA Alteration was active would be affected. If you didn't install any mods that changed vanilla voices for example, then the vanilla voices bsa wouldn't have ever been altered. Wouldn't it be possible to replace your vanilla bsa files in your current install if you had another machine that you could temporarily install Oblivion on?

My own home grown personalizing other people's mods on my machine has always been edit their esp. I have the original downloads to everything I've installed, so if I ever wanted to revert to their original version I can just overwrite from the original. That does lead to complications when an original author offers an update that I want (i.e. do I install their new version and lose my changes or stick with my version). I've never looked in the CS to see if there is a 'Save As' option ... usually I just make an esp active and then save periodically while I'm tinkering. I'm usually not even bright enough to remember to make a backup of my changes before making more, and have on more than one occasion had to try to remember what I'd done previously when I've managed to get too 'close to the cliff edge', so as to speak. The esmify and espify you refer to is done so that you can get assets from mod A into your mod B (usually that pretty hair or shiny bauble). It comes with some conditions to be aware of but from my understanding it's not rocket science. I've not ventured there myself, as I'm more familiar with stone tools and sharp sticks.

You'd probably be best to wait for Hickory's advice on that. My Win 7 experience has been limited to getting the grandkid's laptops and netbooks set up after purchase. Thankfully they've not managed to break anything as of yet (oh now I've jinxed myself).

I was thinking that the "ProgramData virtual store" Hickory spoke of (I'm guessing the folder is named ProgramData) wasn't visible because hidden and system files and folders were set to not show in Windows Explorer (which is Microsoft's default setting). In Win XP it's found in Windows Explorer's Tools menu, then Folder Options and View tab. Who knows where they've hidden it in Win 7.