damanding

On Bethesda.net I block the mod page comments section but post a link to the forum thread for support as the first thing in the description (generally) which is something I've been mocked for on reddit by people who couldn't even be bothered to read the first line of the mod description and see that there is an alternative. Why do I do this? It's easier to provide support in a normal forum thread on Bethnet where there's more editing, formatting, direct reply capabilities, etc. It's better for both me and the users all around. Sometimes alternatives are just better. It's not some always some nefarious conspiracy designed to "hide" anything from you.

Sim Settlements has an external forum dedicated to answering user questions and managing "bug reports". This was necessary due to the sheer popularity of the mod and the hundreds of thousands of comments, questions, and duplicate bug reports. When you're trying to manage literally *hundreds* of bug reports on a new release, 98% of which have already been reported, are due to user misunderstanding of how something in the mod works, or other issues then having a more sophisticated system for management is required. It's not about the author trying to hide anything, it's just about having a more sophisticated option than Nexus provides when necessary, including more fine grained layers of moderation control. On nexus each moderator would be required to be listed as the mod author and any one of them could maliciously delete the entire mod or cause other problems either intentionally or unintentionally. By having more control over the forum software you have more control over moderation with less risk, you have more control over organization of the content, and more control over particularly unruly users who as previously pointed out are actually at an advantage in some ways with an external forum because their misbehavior doesn't necessarily result in being banned from the mod.

Well you can pick one from the Sanctuary, Abernathy, Red Rocket area. I wouldn't use Hangman's Alley with Boston FPS Fix and possibly a couple others that would be in reach of that mod, I'm not sure how far its reach extends. But otherwise you could use the majority of Jenn's mods as long as the settlements aren't too close to one another and/or close to downtown. If you have a good enough machine having broken precombines isn't a big deal, I know some people with a really nice gaming machine that don't notice much difference. Unfortunately I'm not one of them. Honestly you probably use a surprising amount of mods that break precombines without even realizing it. Lots of mod authors don't know that much about the precombine system (or how to clean their mods for that matter, lots of mods break them via dirty edits). One of the popular backpack mods that places backpacks in various locations around the Commonwealth breaks the precombines thanks to a bunch of dirty edits for instance. A mod adding some collectible could be just as guilty of breaking them as a mod which alters the worldspace intentionally and dramatically if the author didn't know what they were doing. If you know how to use xEdit check your mods in there, anything that adds to or alters the worldspace. Look for edits that say "[Placed Object]" with the square brackets [ ] around it. Those brackets indicate a precombine breaking edit. Landscape changes (such as flattening terrain or using the CK to change landscape texture) will also break precombines (though they don't have any indicators in xEdit). Landscape mods which change ground texture via texture file changes (as the majority do) don't necessarily break precombines as long as they are texture replacers only such as Seasons.

Mods which touch the same 3x3 cell area (a total of 9 cells) with rebuilt precombines hard conflict with one another. You can sometimes resolve issues with changing load order, however the only true way to deal with the conflicts is to rebuild precombines/previs for both mods together. Boston FPS fix "works" because it goes last in load order and thus overwrites ALL other mods which rebuild precombines. If Jenn rebuilds them for each settlement individually then only the last one loaded for the ones that touch the same 3x3 cell area would actually work correctly. She would need to have ALL of her settlements in one big rebuilt precombines/previs package for them to not conflict with one another. Not only would that file be huge (a couple gig at least) and take many hours to generate (if not days), but it would also conflict with Boston FPS. Since Jenn doesn't know which settlements users will/will not want to use, whether users will be using the Boston FPS Fix mod, or what other mods they'll be using with rebuilt precombines, she has no way of creating patches for all these possibilities. Plus Nexus probably wouldn't care for her to publish 50 gig worth of patches that still wouldn't cover all the possible combinations users might want. These are hard conflicts. It's one mod out of two or more touching a wide area with rebuilt precombines that wins. You can of course run multiple together but only the last one loaded works right and you'll always have visual bugs and reduced performance from the mod loaded first whose rebuilt precombines aren't being used and is thus essentially still having broken precombines. So your load order and other mods you're using DO actually matter because the individual user will need to create their own merged precombine/previs. I wrote a guide to understanding precombines/previs for users that may help.

If you're looking for a mod that's done it you can use the half split method for finding any problematic mod or mod asset in general. Disable half the files. If your problem goes away then you know your problem mod or file is in the half that you disabled. Split that half into half again, check each half. Essentially just keep splitting the bad half into half again until you find the culprit. Takes I think 8 splits max to find your problem. For mod assets you would disable folders (I just add an underscore the folder name to "disable" it) or you can disable individual files in a folder by creating a new sub folder and moving files into it temporarily.

You can also apply your texture to the model and preview in Nifskope. It's a much faster program to open. You can go to Options>Settings>Resources and select either the directory or archive your texture files are in.

I always use the latest version of the game both to play and create mods with and I've not had any issues doing either with the latest version.

As annoying as it is when Bethesda breaks everyone's mods, that update did bring beneficial things to mod authors like an expanded number of records in ESL files. I think the best thing would be to try to bring Bethesda's attention to the fact they need to update the Japanese version of the game rather than holding back the rest of the world. Though it does suck to be left behind like this. :( Sorry, probably not what you wanted to hear.

Will the individual users who were targeted at least be notified personally to be on extra guard?

Since you wondered if anyone would read the whole thing or even care, I have and I do. :D

Many thanks for this system! It's brought hours of enjoyment to my house thanks to being able to get games I couldn't otherwise afford. :)

In response to post #67632606. #67634316, #67634966, #67636786 are all replies on the same post. Among other things it slows down file scraping from people downloading all mods in mass to illegally host on their own sites.

In response to post #67076411. #67078336 is also a reply to the same post. It wasn't a petty move by GameFront, it was a petty move by a third party trying to take advantage of the deal between GameFront and Nexus for their own gain.

As a mod author xedit has indeed been an invaluable tool offering features the CK doesn't and I really appreciate that! As a mod user, its also saved me from gaming with endless CTDs thanks to conflicts so thanks for that too. :D

Fallout 4 according to the tags @Thandal