A few questions about modding this game

[KeeperFiM]

Sorry if these questions have been asked a bunch before I just haven't found any satisfying answers

 

In Oblivion Mod manager, what is the difference between "bsa alteration" and "bsa redirection" for archiveinvalidation? Most mods I have downloaded tell me to use alteration but sometimes the mod won't show up in-game or will be glitched (these are just texture mods). If I use redirection, as far as I can tell everything shows up correctly and nothing is missing.

 

How.. can I tell if a mod can be used with Nexus mod manager? Even mods that were released after the introduction of NMM tell me to install manually. The mods I am using are just texture mods soooo NMM /should/ be able to handle the file directories correctly but I'm unsure

Also, do I need Wrye Bash and to make bashed patches if I'm just doing these texture mods?

[Striker879]

BSA Alteration was an older and less successful method of archive invalidation. You will see it recommended in some older mods as well as in some more recent ones posted by modders who are either more familiar with it or unaware of BSA Redirection. As you've discovered, in all aspects BSA Redirection is the superior method ... you do it once and then forget about it.

 

Wrye Bash's bashed patch will be of limited use for you when you're simply using mesh/texture replacers. If you used it's BAIN installer it could make reverting to previous configurations easier perhaps (it keeps track of overwrites), but with replacers it's just a matter of install order. I can't say much about whether or not NMM offers similar functionality to BAIN in that respect.

 

What I will do when helping troubleshoot NMM installation woes is download and extract the mod in question. When the folder structure is non-Oblivion standard (usually the case when mods offer different options for install) is normally when people complain that NMM isn't working to install. You can get NMM to work ... it's just a matter of creating your own install folder with only the options you want, and then installing that version using NMM. Of course by the time you've done all that prep work you could just copy and paste to the same result. I guess because I've never even seen NMM, never mind used it, I won't understand the fascination with it.

[KeeperFiM]

BSA Alteration was an older and less successful method of archive invalidation. You will see it recommended in some older mods as well as in some more recent ones posted by modders who are either more familiar with it or unaware of BSA Redirection. As you've discovered, in all aspects BSA Redirection is the superior method ... you do it once and then forget about it.

 

Wrye Bash's bashed patch will be of limited use for you when you're simply using mesh/texture replacers. If you used it's BAIN installer it could make reverting to previous configurations easier perhaps (it keeps track of overwrites), but with replacers it's just a matter of install order. I can't say much about whether or not NMM offers similar functionality to BAIN in that respect.

 

What I will do when helping troubleshoot NMM installation woes is download and extract the mod in question. When the folder structure is non-Oblivion standard (usually the case when mods offer different options for install) is normally when people complain that NMM isn't working to install. You can get NMM to work ... it's just a matter of creating your own install folder with only the options you want, and then installing that version using NMM. Of course by the time you've done all that prep work you could just copy and paste to the same result. I guess because I've never even seen NMM, never mind used it, I won't understand the fascination with it.

Thanks for the quick reply, you cleared some things up for me!