BAIN Formatting

[BlightBingo]

I've been lurking in the modding scene for a long time. Over a decade. Rarely do I engage beyond an endorsement and even more rarely, a comment.

 

When I started modding heavily I used Wrye Bash as my mod management program. Wrye bash is amazing, and the development of MO2 has brought us a software that does what the Installers tab of Wrye always dreamed it could be.

 

Wrye B/Mash brought with it the BAIN file structure that MO2 can read and utilizes masterfully. However, I have found in my last year of heavily playing with my morrowind mod list in MO2 that hardly anybody uses BAIN formats correctly.

 

BAINs were developed as a simple and convenient way to partition off optional parts of mods (i.e. Alternate textures, meshes, anims, patches, stat rebalances) and allow the user to easily select what the want and what they dont.

 

Many, if not most, BAINs I've seen in the past year on the MW Nexus do not do this well. There is no obvious delineation in the file naming conventions, theyre just numbered.

 

The numbering system of the BAIN formatting is where the strength of it lies.

 

We generally see two types of BAIN Structures:

 

Example 1 (Correct BAIN format):

00 Core

00 Core (for BCOM)

00 Core (Rebirth)

01 Textures 1024

01 Textures 512

02 misc patch

03 misc patch

 

 

The above shows us an example of a BAIN that has two options for the 00 Core package. They share the same number so they should not be activated together. We have two misc patches ( misc can be any mod in existence for the purposes of the example) being numbered 02 and 03 tells us that they are not mutually exclusive with each other

 

Ex 2: (UI Mod)

01 Silver

02 Gold

03 Copper

 

This mod is packaged in some horrific manner that only BTB can adequately flagellate. Ostensibly, in a UI mod, I should only pick one trim color. So why does the numbering scheme communicate to the user that all these options are referring themselves as usable alongside each other?

 

Personally, I dont believe theres a reason to not package the vast majority of mods as a BAIN Archive.

 

I used to repackage all the mods i downloaded manually to be more legible in their file structures so i wouldn't have to refer to the readmes every time I checked the mod out. However with the rate of updates in the modern era of the MW modding community, this is a fools errand.

 

Speaking of readmes, docs can all be put in their own optional folder so you dont overload your game folder with misc documentation.

 

Anyway, I know this post may come across as largely whinging, but it is my hope that as a community we can move to packaging more mods in a BAIN format, and within that structure we package them in a more uniform way, and roll more mod options into the main file to genrrally reduce file and download bloat and make the end user experience more streamlined and silky smooth across the community.

 

Now that I've gotten this off my chest, what are your opinions on the BAIN formatting? Would you like it to be more or less unversal?

 

[FIMzzZzz]

i just used it as i did think it made sense, but i see your point and have a question.

i had this before 1x for standard and 2x for the moved version and i want to keep this distinction and folder order

00 Core                                 (necessary)

10 Tel Meskoa ESP                       (choose for standard location north of Tamriel Rebuilts port telvannis)
11 Tel Meskoa ESP Races Playable        (choose for standard location with new Races Playable)
12 Tel Meskoa Aesthesia Grass           (choose to generate MGE grass, requires Aesthesia groundcover)
13 Tel Meskoa Remiros Grass             (choose to generate MGE grass, requires Remiros' groundcover)
14 Tel Meskoa Vurts Grass               (choose to generate MGE grass, requires Vurt's groundcover)

20 Tel Meskoa ESP MOVED                 (choose for moved location, far south-west, matched to abots moved version)
21 Tel Meskoa ESP MOVED Races Playable  (choose for moved location with new Races Playable)
22 Tel Meskoa MOVED Aesthesia Grass     (choose to generate MGE grass for the moved version, requires Aesthesia groundcover)
23 Tel Meskoa MOVED Remiros Grass       (choose to generate MGE grass for the moved version, requires Remiros' groundcover)
24 Tel Meskoa MOVED Vurts Grass         (choose to generate MGE grass for the moved version, requires Vurt's groundcover)
30 Readme                               (found in "Data files\Docs" folder)

 

and now went to this

00 Core                                 (necessary)

10 Tel Meskoa ESP                       (choose for standard location north of Tamriel Rebuilts port telvannis)
10 Tel Meskoa ESP Races Playable        (choose for standard location with new Races Playable)
11 Tel Meskoa Aesthesia Grass           (choose to generate MGE grass, requires Aesthesia groundcover)
11 Tel Meskoa Remiros Grass             (choose to generate MGE grass, requires Remiros' groundcover)
11 Tel Meskoa Vurts Grass               (choose to generate MGE grass, requires Vurt's groundcover)

20 Tel Meskoa ESP MOVED                 (choose for moved location, far south-west, matched to abots moved version)
20 Tel Meskoa ESP MOVED Races Playable  (choose for moved location with new Races Playable)
21 Tel Meskoa MOVED Aesthesia Grass     (choose to generate MGE grass for the moved version, requires Aesthesia groundcover)
21 Tel Meskoa MOVED Remiros Grass       (choose to generate MGE grass for the moved version, requires Remiros' groundcover)
21 Tel Meskoa MOVED Vurts Grass         (choose to generate MGE grass for the moved version, requires Vurt's groundcover)
30 Readme                               (found in "Data files\Docs" folder)

 

with your formating i would have to have all esp files on "10" and all grass on "11" but this would lose the order... in the end it does not matter, i expect people to be able to read xP so just curious...^^

(maybe those fancy BAIN or fomod or whatever installers should be used, like glow in the dahrk has)