Help understanding BSA's & ESP's in relation to unpacking mod

[Diabolus83]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm having trouble understanding a few things in relation to the contents of a mod.

 

When I unpack a mod using Bethesda Archive Extractor (I am trying to rezip the textures and meshes)

To my understanding the BSA is the 'packed' mod archive, and the ESP is the plugin for the mod,

is this correct ?

 

So if I unpack a texture mod (so I can use certain textures) when I zip the mod can I just zip the meshes and texture files or do I need to put the ESP in with them too ?

 

I hope this makes sense.

 

*Edit* I am using Vortex

 

Thanks for reading.

[thumbincubation]

It's been a while since I've done anything with "oldrim," but yes, the .bsa is just the archive of the assets that the .esp will use. (In Oldrim, they are generally all in one .bsa together, while in SSE, they are most often found separately, ie: MyMod.bsa, MyMod - Textures.bsa)

 

The .esp needs to be directly in the data folder (or wherever your mod manager sends them, if you don't use manual installs) so you don't want to pack it into the .bsa. My knowledge on this part is sketchy, so take it with a grain of salt, but I have heard that things like music and sound effects, sometimes scripts, are better off included as loose files, rather than being packed into the bsa. I'm not sure of the accuracy of that, but something you may want to look into, if you plan to use/include any of those.

 

Something to consider, also, is loose files win out over .bsa files, so if you wish to avoid conflicts, it can sometimes help to create entirely new file paths, to keep specific models and textures together. Other times, it's beneficial for models to use the vanilla file paths, for example when you only change the mesh but you want to allow the player's preferred texture mods to work on your model as well.

 

 

*edit * I neglected to mention, if you are using a bunch and want to keep them in a .bsa, you would need to use the archive tool, or a modded one, to create a new .bsa for them. I don't believe throwing them into a regular zip or rar file will work the same way, though I could be wrong. You might look into whether Cathedral Assets Optimizer is available for Oldrim (I use it for SSE). It can take care of .bsas for you in no time flat. One of the things I did, early on, was take a bunch of loose file remesh and retexture mods (combo of Leanwolf's weapons and Believeable Weapons) and put them all into .bsas with a dummy plugin, to try to keep my data folder a little less jumbled.

Edited April 10, 2022 by thumbincubation

[Diabolus83]

Thanks for the reply thumbincubation, you have cleared up a bunch of things for me.

I am actually modding SEE not Oldrim, but a guide requires me to take certain textures and re-pack the BSA so its a lot for me to wrap my head around.

I am trying to use Cathedral Assets Optimizer but I don't believe I'm fully understanding it yet. :wallbash: Mainly because I cant get it to work lol.

So in relation to this particular mod when I have the BSA do I then re-zip with the original ESP or with the dummy plug-in ?