Why Does My Patch Create Duplicates? (Skyrim LE)

[Shadeybladey]

I was making a patch for 83Willows 101 Bugs to use with my Alchemy mod, as many of the ingredient effects are massively over-powered (Ravage Health doing 25 points of damage per second for 428 seconds and the potion being worth thousands of gp, for example).

So I loaded my patch esp and the Willows esp (it has only Skyrim.esm as a master file) and made changes to a dozen or so ingredient files and the CK stopped working. I couldn't open anything. It was already saved, so I exited and reloaded.

But all my changes are duplicates! I think this must be why I tried this a few years ago but gave up.

 

 

I suspect I should have made the 83Willows esp a Master to my 83WillowsPatch.esp, but then again I thought that any changes I made to 83Willows would be stored in my patch esp and override 83Willows in-game. I thought the CK would treat 83Willows as a Master automatically.

But apparently not!

I could just make the changes to 83Willows directly, but that would not be a patch.

So how do I make 83Willows a Master file for my patch? I made a patch years ago for Realistic Needs and Diseases, whereby I could use the raw meat etc to make new ingredients in my Dwemer Griinder at my player home, Archmage of Winterhold's rooms and a few Alchemists dottted around Skyrim. I didn't have this trouble then.

I suppose I'd then have to repeat the changes I made?

 

Cheers!

[Shadeybladey]

OK, I think I've solved it.

I should load 83Willows but not make it active, make my changes and save as the name of my patch.

Then use Wrye bash to "add master" to my patch.

That will work?

[xkkmEl]

You have to make 83Willows a master, using Wrye Bash, then make your edits in the CK, and finally remove the master bit from 83Willows.

The CK will allow you to load multiple esp plugins, so you can copy forms to the active plugin.  However it will not save in your plugin any references to other esp files, only masters.  The game engine on the other hand does not care about who is master or not.

When doing this type of thing, I'd recommend you keep backups of your patch plugin (in case you get master bits confused).

You should also see how things look in xEdit, and check that your edits apply to the original objects.  It's also the occasion to double check on involuntary edits.

 

[Shadeybladey]

On 10/29/2024 at 8:44 AM, xkkmEl said:

You have to make 83Willows a master, using Wrye Bash, then make your edits in the CK, and finally remove the master bit from 83Willows.

Cheers. I actually make it an esm or mark it as an esm? I noticed that the instant I saved my patch in the CK it deleted the dependency on 83Willows.

Can I do this with TES5Edit? I don't like using Wrye Bash as it once deleted a SKYTest esp because it thought there was something wrong with it. I forget the details, but it put me off. It was a long time ago. It just told me it was doing it, no option to say NO. It also screwed things up when I tried marking something as a Master. Or it was me that messed it up, it was quite some time ago.

I don't know why I could make an Alchemy Patch for RND without this rigmarole. I made most of my mods in 2012/2013. I never did complete the Alchemy one, though. As well as slightly modifying the Perk tree, it adds a ton of ingredients and effects, and I keep making more ingredients! I come back to Skyrim for a while a few times a year, and this is one of those times and I want to fix 83Willows' wonderful 101 Bugs.

Thanks!

[xkkmEl]

xEdit does a fine job of turning OFF the master bit (click on your mod in the left pane, then click on "ESM" in the right pane, and finally set ESM to 0), but it somehow doesn't do it right for turning it ON.

I am told (but haven't tried) that you can rename to esm, load up in the CK and save.  This should turn the master bit ON.  Renaming the plugin has other impacts though so you should renamed it right back to esp.  This may work, but it's untried on my end.

Wrye Bash is the common method.  Turning ON the master bit is the only thing I use it for...  Never had trouble with it.  It automatically creates a "bashed patch plugin" but I leave it unselected.

[Shadeybladey]

On 10/30/2024 at 12:39 PM, xkkmEl said:

xEdit does a fine job of turning OFF the master bit (click on your mod in the left pane, then click on "ESM" in the right pane, and finally set ESM to 0), but it somehow doesn't do it right for turning it ON.

Ah, than I'd better follow your advice and use Wrye Bash. Is it obvious how to do it, or should I look up a Step by Step guide? I have forgotten so much about making mods. Some of my mods I am quite impressed with (I did get a lot of help with scripts from the Forum), but I can't remember most of what I did and barely remember what I CAN still do.

I think I tried renaming something as an esm years ago but it went haywire. Luckily, I keep backups of any files I am messing with.

Will Wrye Bash automatically reorder my PlugIns.ini? I don't want that. I do have backups of that, DLCList.txt and LoadOrder.txt, though.

Cheers!

[xkkmEl]

The full instructions for Wrye Bash is to right click on your esp, select the "Add ESM flag" menu entry, then exit Wrye Bash.

I have never seen it touch anything except what I told it to (aside from generating the generally empty "bashed patch.esp").

If you search on-line instructions for using WB, it will generally tell you to use the "Rebuild patch ..." in that same menu.  This operation is definitely aggressive, deselecting plugins and such.  I have had no trouble from it... it's just a matter of turning the plugins back on... but it can still be tricky if you start with a complex mix of active and inactive plugins.

If you stick to "Add ESM flag" (as I do) you should not encounter any problems.

Edited October 31 by xkkmEl

[IsharaMeradin]

Once you add the ESM flag to an ESP, that ESP will be moved up to the ESM plugin space.  So, any text files associated with plugin order will be modified.  Make backups if you wish ahead of time.  Once the ESM flag is removed from an ESP, the ESP will be moved back down to the ESP plugin space.  However, it may not go back to the position it was in before.  As long as no new plugins were added, you could restore the text files associated with plugin order.  Otherwise, move the parent ESP back to where it needs to be within WB's plugin list and let WB update the text files accordingly.

While you can go into the game and check how some of your changes behave while the parent ESP has the ESM flag, you'll want to do a proper test to ensure that everything works correctly when the parent ESP has had the ESM flag removed.  

[Shadeybladey]

Cheers, guys.

[Shadeybladey]

On 10/31/2024 at 9:53 PM, xkkmEl said:

The full instructions for Wrye Bash is to right click on your esp, select the "Add ESM flag" menu entry, then exit Wrye Bash.

OK, I did that and it removed my patch from PlugIns.txt.

But at least it did not delete my esp!

But the CK and Tes5Edit still do not see my patch as a patch requiring 83 Willows 101 Bugs. The CK marks my changes as duplicates and Tes5Edit seems to treat them as having different Form IDs.

Now, I realise I am probably making a massively obvious Schoolboy Error with this, but can I mark 83Willows_101BUGS_V4_HighRes.esp as a master to my _shb_H&P_83WillowsHighResPatch.esp without my changes being duplicates or new forms?

Or should I delete my patch and start again in the CK?

 

Cheers!