Whe it comes to oblivion which mod manager should i use ?

[seweryn]

Obmm , NMM (I am not sure about this one since it was made during skyrim era) or do it manually ?

I would prefer to use mod manager since doing it manually can cause problems.

Of course i can use wrye bash but that is another cup of tea all together.

Thanks for the info,

Cheers,

[HeyYou]

Nexus mod manager would likely work just fine for you. Back in the day, I actually used OBMM to install FCOM, but, at the time, that was the only option available. :D

[WastelandAssassin]

I believe that most guides still use Wrye Bash for modding Oblivion

At least that was what I used the last time I followed a modding guide for the game

 

Honestly, I would recommend looking through a few guides, even if just to see which fix mods are recommended

And those guides should provide better answers regarding which mod manager to use

But no matter what you do, manual installation is never the answer, and it's not worth the problems it would bring

[seweryn]

I believe that most guides still use Wrye Bash for modding Oblivion

At least that was what I used the last time I followed a modding guide for the game

 

Honestly, I would recommend looking through a few guides, even if just to see which fix mods are recommended

And those guides should provide better answers regarding which mod manager to use

But no matter what you do, manual installation is never the answer, and it's not worth the problems it would bring

When using wrye bash should i check if the mod have folder structure ? I remember when i used wrye bash back in the day , some people mods weren't compatible with wrye bash installation. I had to unrar then reorder them in proper way then create archive and add to wrye bash. That is why i am not fond off mod manager.

[WastelandAssassin]

 

I believe that most guides still use Wrye Bash for modding Oblivion

At least that was what I used the last time I followed a modding guide for the game

 

Honestly, I would recommend looking through a few guides, even if just to see which fix mods are recommended

And those guides should provide better answers regarding which mod manager to use

But no matter what you do, manual installation is never the answer, and it's not worth the problems it would bring

When using wrye bash should i check if the mod have folder structure ? I remember when i used wrye bash back in the day , some people mods weren't compatible with wrye bash installation. I had to unrar then reorder them in proper way then create archive and add to wrye bash. That is why i am not fond off mod manager.

 

I honestly don't recall, but I do believe you are correct on this

 

This is why I really recommend following a guide, at least for the basics

Guides usually provide general information regarding how to use the tools they recommend, which should include such notes on Wrye Bash

You could also read the documentation of Wrye Bash, as it should have notes regarding such possible issues

 

Sorry I can't be more helpful, it's been quite a while since I modded Oblivion......

[seweryn]

 

 

I believe that most guides still use Wrye Bash for modding Oblivion

At least that was what I used the last time I followed a modding guide for the game

 

Honestly, I would recommend looking through a few guides, even if just to see which fix mods are recommended

And those guides should provide better answers regarding which mod manager to use

But no matter what you do, manual installation is never the answer, and it's not worth the problems it would bring

When using wrye bash should i check if the mod have folder structure ? I remember when i used wrye bash back in the day , some people mods weren't compatible with wrye bash installation. I had to unrar then reorder them in proper way then create archive and add to wrye bash. That is why i am not fond off mod manager.

 

I honestly don't recall, but I do believe you are correct on this

 

This is why I really recommend following a guide, at least for the basics

Guides usually provide general information regarding how to use the tools they recommend, which should include such notes on Wrye Bash

You could also read the documentation of Wrye Bash, as it should have notes regarding such possible issues

 

Sorry I can't be more helpful, it's been quite a while since I modded Oblivion......

 

No problem, basic skyrim has too much mods and it is 32 application which means it is ram limited not to mention i have to deal with sky ui, which i am not fond of ; i prefer the looks of DarNified UI in oblivion.

The thing i really loved about skyrim is the "one click modding" thing ; You just click "downloaded with manager" and program was doing everything for you .

One more thing i am wondering is, if i can use obmm for omod installs and nmm normall rar/zip installs.

[Oblivionaddicted]

I use Wrye bash & LOOT and Oblivion runs fine with more than 100 mods.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Several of the older Oblivion mods will have to be re-structured, no matter which manager you're attempting to use. Every manager expects their own proprietary folder structure, some expect a shared folder structure, which was later brewed up by the community, the most common you could say. But too many Oblivion mods were created in a time where neither managers nor shared common structures were a thing, yet. There is 1 packaging structure every manager I know will be able to understand:

 

No surrounding folder,

only ESP/ESM, meshes, textures, sound, etc. folders on level 1,

no options, no choices,

and no post-extraction tasks such as copying and/or renaming folders or files.

 

Basically every "part" of a BAIN archive consists exactly of that structure. But a BAIN archive itself can never be put into the Data folder 1:1, nor can a manager other than WryeBash/BAIN install it correctly.

 

OMODs can even only be opened by OBMM. (Unless current latest managers introduced some file-format compatibility along the way.) But you shouldn't be using 2 managers at once. Best case just use OBMM to "turn into archive" the OMOD file, then unpack and restructure as necessary and usual.

When using OBMM it's especially important to keep in mind it does not "manage" your installs. It only extracts once, overwriting everything there is without making backups, and if you want to change install order or priority later, you have to uninstall and reinstall all mods involved in the correct order again. Unlike WryeBash/BAIN it won't restore files or folders it previously overwrote.

 

If I recall correctly, the last NMM was working the same way. Overwrite files without backup, and when uninstalling later, old files stay lost.

 

Vortex is much better in this managing department, from what I heard, enabling you to effortlessly switch order/priority around and previously overwritten files will automatically return. But it of course struggles with uncommon folder structures of older Oblivion mods like every other manager does.

 

 

However, this 1-click-install myth should really go away. You were basically just lucky the most mods for that game are packaged in a shared common folder structure almost everybody uses, and the conflicting parts of your mod collection were so insignificant they didn't need further work.

 

But here we're working with a game engine where there's not even a guarantee the exact same 1:1 copy&pasted installation of mods that worked for 10.000 of users previously will also work for the 10.001-th still. It's working so inconsistently at times, not even a simple "missing texture" situation will cause the same error on every person's install.

 

For example: Users of an older Oblivion version < 1.2 will have their games not even be able to "see" plugins created with a >=1.2 version of the CS and thus they can't use them at all.

However, 1 out of an insane number of folks I helped with having missed updating their games in the past before actually was able to run one of my mods. Just half of my scripts were breaking on them, as their engine didn't have the functions I used. As my mod was definitely running for them, just not correctly at all, it was seriously a hard time figuring out their game version simply being too old was the cause for this. They were the only 1 ever in 15 years who was even able to run a 1.2 CS versioned plugin in a 1.1 versioned outdated game. An explanation for that is still sought.

[seweryn]

Several of the older Oblivion mods will have to be re-structured, no matter which manager you're attempting to use. Every manager expects their own proprietary folder structure, some expect a shared folder structure, which was later brewed up by the community, the most common you could say. But too many Oblivion mods were created in a time where neither managers nor shared common structures were a thing, yet. There is 1 packaging structure every manager I know will be able to understand:

 

No surrounding folder,

only ESP/ESM, meshes, textures, sound, etc. folders on level 1,

no options, no choices,

and no post-extraction tasks such as copying and/or renaming folders or files.

 

Basically every "part" of a BAIN archive consists exactly of that structure. But a BAIN archive itself can never be put into the Data folder 1:1, nor can a manager other than WryeBash/BAIN install it correctly.

 

OMODs can even only be opened by OBMM. (Unless current latest managers introduced some file-format compatibility along the way.) But you shouldn't be using 2 managers at once. Best case just use OBMM to "turn into archive" the OMOD file, then unpack and restructure as necessary and usual.

When using OBMM it's especially important to keep in mind it does not "manage" your installs. It only extracts once, overwriting everything there is without making backups, and if you want to change install order or priority later, you have to uninstall and reinstall all mods involved in the correct order again. Unlike WryeBash/BAIN it won't restore files or folders it previously overwrote.

 

If I recall correctly, the last NMM was working the same way. Overwrite files without backup, and when uninstalling later, old files stay lost.

 

Vortex is much better in this managing department, from what I heard, enabling you to effortlessly switch order/priority around and previously overwritten files will automatically return. But it of course struggles with uncommon folder structures of older Oblivion mods like every other manager does.

 

 

However, this 1-click-install myth should really go away. You were basically just lucky the most mods for that game are packaged in a shared common folder structure almost everybody uses, and the conflicting parts of your mod collection were so insignificant they didn't need further work.

 

But here we're working with a game engine where there's not even a guarantee the exact same 1:1 copy&pasted installation of mods that worked for 10.000 of users previously will also work for the 10.001-th still. It's working so inconsistently at times, not even a simple "missing texture" situation will cause the same error on every person's install.

 

For example: Users of an older Oblivion version < 1.2 will have their games not even be able to "see" plugins created with a >=1.2 version of the CS and thus they can't use them at all.

However, 1 out of an insane number of folks I helped with having missed updating their games in the past before actually was able to run one of my mods. Just half of my scripts were breaking on them, as their engine didn't have the functions I used. As my mod was definitely running for them, just not correctly at all, it was seriously a hard time figuring out their game version simply being too old was the cause for this. They were the only 1 ever in 15 years who was even able to run a 1.2 CS versioned plugin in a 1.1 versioned outdated game. An explanation for that is still sought.

Omod comes with it's own installantion program . Rar is just copy and paste. So i would prefer to to use omod any day of the week

Do you you mean i need to check every mod i download if it has a proper folder structure compatible with bain ? If that is the case it kinda sucks.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Do you you mean i need to check every mod i download if it has a proper folder structure compatible with bain ? If that is the case it kinda sucks.Omod comes with it's own installantion program . Rar is just copy and paste. So i would prefer to to use omod any day of the week

You have to do that for every manager there is out there is what I said. No manager can understand all and there's definitely mods not every manager can understand.

Luckily usually just a quick glance is all that's needed. There's archiving tools allowing you to just "look" inside without actually unpacking at all even.

I heard some of the newer managers even have an "inspect" feature for downloaded mods like that and provide means for restructuring prior to install themselves.

 

If it's a simple basic structured mod like above, every manager should be able to read it. Even BAIN understands those straight away, although they aren't exactly the structure BAIN uses at all.

 

And yes, OMODs back with OBMM were a novelty, in how they provided a visual step-by-step wizard setup to configure your mod prior to install.

However, such wizard-like installs can nowadays be provided by almost all the better managers as well. NMM and Vortex used Fomod XML files to create these, or still do.

And the flaw that overwritten files from other mods are forever lost, even when you later uninstall, is the primary issue making OBMM not a recommendable tool anymore today. If you know of and can live with that flaw, however, everybody's free to use OBMM still at any time.