Viewing just .esps (newb alert)

[Amatheon]

Hi!

 

So I'm new here and this is my first post. Hi everyone, nice to meet you! I'm planning on baking cookies or something to celebrate.

 

My apologies if this question is a bit lengthier than is generally expected. Also if this has already been answered. I looked but couldn't find anything.

 

So I've been playing Morrowind and Oblivion on and off for a few years, mostly on the Xbox(360). For that reason mods never interested me. Then I saw the GOTY edition at Best Buy for something like $20, bought it, installed it and rediscovered all of my old frustrations. I'm that guy who can't stand uncontrolled levelling and some of those other character development limitations imposed by Bethesda's system. (leveling destruction by killing baddies inside the kvatch gate during the first sequence over and over forever? yeah, that was me) I love the concept but in practice it was never up to expectations and I would REALLY like to be able to just sit back and enjoy the game without my OCD kicking in all the time. Something sparked me to look into modding and so here I am. I've been reading articles online in my spare time for a bit more than a week learning all of the fun goodies I'm going to get to play with and learn about. However, I have some questions that I'm hoping you good folks can help me with.

 

Stick with me. :biggrin:

 

I understand TESCS fairly well and understand the basics of scripting. I've downloaded a few tools such as OBMM, OBSE and TES4Gecko. I've downloaded a bunch of mods that seem like something near what I want to accomplish. I think I can create new things (quests, locations, etc) without too much trouble. My problem is with modifying the behavior of Oblivion as it already is (the leveling system and other game mechanics for example). I believe the best way for me to learn some basics is to see how others did similar things. I have been looking but have not found a tool that can show you a mod in its entirety but by itself. This is what I expected to see the first time I tried to load an .esp without checking oblivion.esm in the CS (which doesn't work obviously since the .esp requires its master). I even tried converting an .esp to an .esm with Gecko but I couldn't load that on its own either. Gecko is great at showing exactly what records were changed but only shows the formID and similar meta data. Script Dumper just shows the scripts and TESCS shows so much its hard to isolate only the starred '*' items.

 

So after that absurdly lengthy intro can anyone tell me if a tool that I am looking for exists or if I am perhaps just being dumb about the tools I already have? With my admittedly limited understanding I'm looking at either wading through the CS laboriously or using script dumper and then spend an hour or two comparing formID's from Gecko with the CS...

 

*pitiful whine* help?

 

Thanks in advance. Here's hoping I can be the guy answering some questions someday. :thumbsup:

 

P.S. I added the latest OBSE functions (like 800 or something) to the notepad++ user defined template but I don't know how to share it. If anyone wants it of course especially with my reversed color scheme. Would uploading it right here to a forum post be appropriate?

[Amatheon]

As an addendum I should have used the title , viewing .esps in isolation. Sounds much less idiotic I think.

 

If anyone can tell me the various script extenders (a simple list or link to one would be great) I can update the notepadd++ custom highlighting file to contain all of the available plugins and extenders. I am new enough I don't think I could find them all and I hate doing things half arsed.

[LoginToDownload]

I'm not sure there is a way to look at only the changes a mod makes, since everything is so thoroughly tied to Oblivion.esm, but most of the brand new stuff (persistent objects, scripts, cells, etc) added share a certain prefix (such as 0 or aaaa) so there are no conflicts and the modder can access them all without too much poking around. You can also see a total list of changes in an .esp by highlighting it under File/Data and clicking Details.

[Amatheon]

I'm not sure there is a way to look at only the changes a mod makes, since everything is so thoroughly tied to Oblivion.esm, but most of the brand new stuff (persistent objects, scripts, cells, etc) added share a certain prefix (such as 0 or aaaa) so there are no conflicts and the modder can access them all without too much poking around. You can also see a total list of changes in an .esp by highlighting it under File/Data and clicking Details.

 

Good points about the way modders name their content, thanks. I think my issue there is that most of the things I want to do will also be modding existing content which means the names won't change.

 

Thanks for the tip on the details button. Somehow I never noticed it. I can't seem to find a way to expand it so I see the same limitation here that I did with Gecko.

[Eiries]

Anything a mod changes or adds to the game will be automatically marked with an asterisk in the CS.

 

With something like, say, a mod that modifies the leveling system, I can't think of a way to view the changes without Oblivion.esm, since it's that very file that was modified.

 

However, I think most changes like that will be under Gameplay>Settings. Scrolling down with the mod active, you should be able to easily find the marked ones.

[Amatheon]

Anything a mod changes or adds to the game will be automatically marked with an asterisk in the CS.

 

With something like, say, a mod that modifies the leveling system, I can't think of a way to view the changes without Oblivion.esm, since it's that very file that was modified.

 

However, I think most changes like that will be under Gameplay>Settings. Scrolling down with the mod active, you should be able to easily find the marked ones.

 

That's what I was afraid of. Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it.

 

:thanks: